COVID-19: Sindh to become first province in Pakistan to vaccinate people below 40

Karachi: Sindh is going to become the first province in Pakistan to start vaccinating people below 40 years of age against coronavirus from May 16.

This was disclosed by Sindh Health Minister Dr. Azra Fazal Pechuho as she inaugurated the Pakistan’s largest COVID-19 mass vaccination facility at the Expo Centre Karachi.

Sindh Health Minister said that the coronavirus vaccination would be provided to people of all eligible age groups in the province free of charge.

She said that a walk-in system had been launched to instantly vaccinate any eligible person without the system of prior registration using the cell phone.

She said the process was on to increase the number of vaccination centres in the province.

The Health Minister said that the Sindh government was willing to purchase COVID-19 vaccines on its own as for this it required the support from the federal government.

The vaccination centre at the Expo Cente is capable of vaccinating up to 30,000 people in a day. It is the first COVID-19 vaccination centre in the country to vaccinate the people round-the-clock.

The centre has 12 registration counters and 96 cubicles for vaccination. A single shift of the centre is staffed by 360 health care workers.

Task force

The coronavirus task force in Sindh met here at the Chief Minister House on Monday with Sindh Chief Minister Syed Murad Ali Shah in chair.

It decided that the coronavirus vaccination centres in Sindh would remain open during the Eid Al Fitr holidays. The meeting decided that Sindh would increase to 100,000 its capacity to daily vaccinate the people.

Sindh CM directed the officials concerned to hire additional space at the Karachi’s Expo Centre to vaccinate 50,000 people there in a single day.

H mentioned that coronavirus positivity ratio in Karachi was 9.48 per cent from May 3 to May 9.

He appealed to the people to stay at home during Eid Al Fitr holidays.