Islamabad: COVID-19 has claimed the life of a doctor at the Pakistan Institute of Medical Sciences (PIMS) in Islamabad.
Dr. Manzoor is the latest casualty in the war against COVID-19. He was on ventilator for the past one month.
Meanwhile, Pakistan reported 45 deaths and 2,432 confirmed cases of COVID-19 during the last twenty-four hours taking the total number of cases in the country to 516,770 and death toll to 10,908.
According to the National Health Ministry’s portal, there is an increase in the number of recoveries and during the last one day, 2,793 patients of COVID-19 qualified to be categorized among the recovered cases. The country’s total recoveries are thus 472,099 while the numbers of active cases are 33,763, an alarming figure at a time when the country is going to open schools for higher classes from Monday January 18.
Provincial Health Minister of Sindh Dr. Azra Pechuho has sought the federal government’s permission for procuring the vaccine for COVID-19 as soon as possible.
While addressing a press conference on Saturday, she expressed her resentment at the slow pace of the federal government in ordering COVID-19 vaccines and cautioned that delay would make Pakistan a "pariah" country.
Obtain a vaccine
She referred to a statement by Prime Minister's top aide on health Dr. Faisal Sultan in which he had said that the federal government wanted to obtain a vaccine with the highest efficacy.
She said countries like the UK, the US, Europe and other countries were rushing to get hold of the coronavirus vaccine.
Even the African countries had started procurement and India had taken one step forward and initiated the vaccination process at home, said Dr. Azra Pechuho.
Dr. Sultan had on Friday said the government's target was to procure COVID-19 vaccine in the first quarter of the current year, and it was confident of doing so. At the same time, he said it was quite difficult to give a final date in that regard.
