Islamabad: As a follow-up of the cabinet committee decision to pre-book over 1 million doses of COVID-19 vaccines from Chinese company Sinopharm, the federal government has decided to set up vaccine administration centres in all districts to ensure that immunisation is carried out at grassroots level.
A special session of the National Command and Operation Centre (NCOC) was informed that master trainers would be imparted knowledge about the inoculation process and they in turn would train healthcare workers on administering the vaccine.
The training sessions for the master trainers will be held in all provinces and in the federal capital.
The NCOC meeting was held to discuss the national vaccine strategy and the plan to immunise the maximum number of citizens in the shortest possible time.
The meeting was told that as per the strategy Front Line Healthcare Workers (FLHW) would be vaccinated in the first stage of inoculation process of COVID-19 followed by people above 65 years of age due to higher vulnerability to the virus.
During the second stage of the immunisation process, all healthcare workers and people between 60 and 64 years of age would be administered the vaccine.
NCOC Director General Operations & Planning Maj Gen Asif Mehmood Goraya assured the participants of the meeting that all-out efforts would be made to facilitate federating units in carrying out smooth vaccination.
The federal government is yet to decide on reopening of the government and the private educational institutions from January 11 as the meeting between education minister Shafqat Mehmood and representatives of the private schools ended inconclusively on Friday.
After the meeting, the education minister told media the final decision in this regard would be made on January 4.
The minister said the decision would be made on January 4 after the Inter-Provincial Education Ministers Conference (IPEMC) and the National Command and Operation Center (NCOC) meeting.
Before making any decision we would like to have a feedback from the health ministry, he said adding the government would ensure the health safety of students, teachers and other staff members.
Pakistan has reported 71 deaths and 2,463 new case of COVID-19 in the last 24 hours.
According to the health ministry’s portal, the number of confirmed cases of COVID-19 has surged to 482,178. The nationwide tally of fatalities has jumped to 10,176 on Friday.
Recovered from virus
According to the latest figures by the National Command and Operation Center (NCOC), 437,229 persons have been recovered from the virus so far.
“Minister predicts COVID-19 & PDM will end by first quarter of 2021”
Federal Minister for Science & Technology Fawad Chaudhry has predicted that COVID-19 pandemic and the anti-government alliance of political parties Pakistan Democratic Movement (PDM) would no longer exist after the first quarter of 2021.
The minister took to Twitter on Friday – the first day of the new year – and said the Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) government will complete half of its tenure in February and should focus on uplift projects.
Fawad Chaudhry said the PTI-government had to launch such projects in coming six months which would be completed within two years.
The Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz (PML-N) and Pakistan People’s Party (PPP) should meanwhile find new leadership, he said.
