COVID-19: Pakistan to have vaccine by mid-January

Islamabad: Pakistan is likely to have a COVID-19 vaccine by the middle of this month and the Sindh health department has requested people under 59 to volunteer for the vaccine trial.

The provincial government has also approved the Standard Operating Procedures (SOPs) and Karachi’s International Centre for Chemical & Biological Sciences (ICCBS) has initiated the process for induction of volunteers.

These volunteers will undergo trials and for this purpose the provincial government has allocated PKR 50,000 (Dh 1,140) along with other expenses for each volunteer.

According the health department, senior doctors will carry out complete tests of the volunteers including blood, ECG, X-Ray, COVID-19 PCR and urine.

In the first phase, 125,000 of 150,000 health workers in Sindh’s private and public healthcare facilities will be vaccinated.

The rest will inoculated after the arrival of the second consignment of the vaccine.

The provincial health department has already notified the Provincial Vaccine Administration Coordination Cell (PVACC) after getting a commitment from the National Vaccine Task Force and the National Command Operation Centre (NCOC) for supply of the Covid-19 vaccine by Jan 15.

The provincial health minister Dr Azra Fazal Pechuho while chairing a meeting a day earlier, stated that the NCOC and the National Vaccine Task Force had committed to supply the province with 250,000 Covid-19 vaccine doses by mid-January and each recipient would get two doses with a gap of 21 days.

In the first phase, she informed officials, healthcare providers performing duties in the Covid wards and other front-line workers engaged in handling coronavirus patients would be administered the vaccine.

Second phase

The second phase would include people above 60 years of age and those with comorbid conditions, this was decided in the meeting.

The people, who would be marked to receive the vaccine, would get prior information about vaccine administration through a phone call and later receive a vaccination card.

Pakistan on Saturday reported 82 deaths and 2,184 new cases of COVID-19 in last 24 hours resulting in 10,258 deaths and 484,362 infections countrywide.

According to the Health Ministry’s website, the number of active cases has been estimated at 35,130 while 1,745 were declared recovered from the virus in past one day.

“Karachi Expo centre to turn into vaccine administration centre”

It was also decided in the meeting that 50 cubicles would be set up at the Expo Centre and 5,000 individuals would be vaccinated in a single day.

Facilities for vaccine administration would be provided at tertiary care hospitals in the interior areas of Sindh.