Islamabad: Pakistan’s number of COVID-19 infections surged to 502,416 on Sunday as 2,899 confirmed cases were reported during the last 24 hours.
With 46 deaths in the same period, the country’s overall death toll caused by COVID-19 stands at 10,644.
The number of recovered cases has also jumped to 456,969—1,524 recovered in the last twenty-four hours.
According to the National Health Ministry’s portal, the country’s fatality rate hovers over 2.1 per cent while the recovery rate is 91per cent. The number of active cases in the country has also slightly gone up from 33,474 to 34,808 in one day, reports the health ministry’s website.
Large population
Special Assistant to the Prime Minister on Health Dr Faisal Sultan has expressed optimism of acquiring the vaccine at the earliest.
“Being a country with a large population we believe that we will get the vaccine at the earliest. We are also doing bilateral agreements to vaccinate a large chunk of the population,” he said.
Prime Minister’s top aide on health further said he was aware that the international coalition Covax, had pledged to provide 50 million free doses of COVID-19 vaccine to Pakistan.
It had also secured contracts of two billion doses worldwide, he said. People to be vaccinated in three phases
Dr Faisal Sultan said the vaccination process in Pakistan had been divided into three phases starting with the health professionals and then those above 65 followed by the population in the age bracket of 60-65 and the other healthcare workers.
The number of people to be vaccinated in the second phase comes to around 7 million, Dr Sultan said, adding that the remaining people would be vaccinated in the third phase which will be completed by November this year.
Entire process
Meanwhile, the health ministry has planned to set up the first COVID-19 Vaccine Centre in Islamabad’s Tarlai region. “The authorities are monitoring carefully the entire process as vaccine import is likely by the last week of January,” said Dr Zaeem Zia while talking to Gulf News.
Doctors, health workers are being trained to administer COVID-19 vaccine to a large number of people, he further said. A mock exercise in this regard has also been conducted recently.
About the hospitals’ staff and paramedics, he said health teams would impart training to them for administering vaccines.
About the first Covid Vaccine Centre, an official of the health ministry said special chillers would be installed there to preserve the vaccine. A helpline 1166 is also being set up in collaboration with National Database And Registration Authority (NADRA) and the Ministry of Information Technology (IT) to guide people regarding the vaccination process, he further said.
