pakistan vaccine covid
People wait for their turn to receive a dose of the COVID-19 coronavirus Sinovac vaccine at a vaccination camp organised at expo centre in Karachi on June 3, 2021, as the head of a Pakistani province ordered that government employees who refuse to be vaccinated would not be paid from next month. Image Credit: AFP

Karachi: Sindh Chief Minister Syed Murad Ali Shah has ordered non-payment of salaries to government employees who are not vaccinated against the coronavirus. The decision will come into effect from July.

Shah took the decision while chairing a meeting of the provincial coronavirus Task Force here at Chief Minister House on Thursday.

Earlier, the Sindh government on May 27, 2021 gave a seven-day ultimatum to its employees to get the COVID-19 jab.

While chairing the meeting, Sindh CM reiterated his appeal to the general public to reach the nearest vaccination centre to get the jab.

The CM also ordered the conversion of 300 basic health units of the government in the province into vaccination facilities to help inoculate 30,000 people daily.

He also assigned the target of vaccinating 60,000 people daily to the mobile vaccination teams.

He said some 90 privately run hospitals in the province should administer 10,000 doses of coronavirus vaccine daily.

The meeting was briefed that 1.5 million doses of the coronavirus vaccine had been administered so far in the province till date.

Sindh Health Secretary Kazim Jatoi informed the meeting that so far 26,812 passengers coming from abroad to Karachi had been tested for coronavirus infection. Of these, 55 of them tested positive cases for COVID-19. Four passengers were diagnosed with the Indian variant of coronavirus on May 29 and were placed in isolation.

The meeting was briefed that 392 people had lost their lives in Sindh due to coronavirus in the last 30 days. Of these, 238 patients were on ventilators while 73 were in home isolation.