Islamabad: Vaccinations are picking up across Pakistan with 150,000 health workers getting their first dose.
According to Special Assistant to the Prime Minister on Health, Dr Faisal Sultan, the government was considering to make vaccinations mandatory for all front-line workers to break the chain of infection. He got his first dose a couple of days ago.
He asked health professionals who had been immunized to share their experience with their colleagues who were a bit hesitant to be convinced and inoculated against the deadly virus. He warned that vaccine hesitancy could lead to a rise in the number of coronavirus cases.
The special assistant said the World Health Organisation (WHO) had approved the vaccines in use not only in Pakistan but nearly 35 countries.
Herd immunity
Dr. Sultan explained that in first phase, two categories of people would be administered the vaccine – front-line healthcare workers and people over 65 years of age.
“We have set a target to achieve herd immunity by vaccinating 70 million people by the end of the current year, however, we are hopeful of achieving the target by November,” he added.
Everyone above the age of 65 would be able to get COVID-19 vaccine from March for free at governmental facilities, he said.
Sindh Health Minister Dr. Azra Pechuho has warned healthcare workers of termination if they refuse to get themselves vaccinated against coronavirus.
The provincial minister said this while presiding over a meeting on the establishment of adult vaccination centres across the province.
“We have started the process of COVID-19 vaccination in Sindh where all healthcare workers are being registered for the vaccination.
New cases
All those healthcare workers who do not take part in the process of vaccination and get themselves vaccinated would be terminated,” she said.
Pakistan on Friday reported 32 fatalities in a period of twenty-four hours. In the same period, 1,541 new cases of COVID-19 registering a total of 577,482. With 32 deaths the country’s toll has surged to 12,804.
According to official portal of the National Health Ministry in the last 24 hours, 41,849 were conducted according to which there are 22,285 active cases in the country. In last one day 2,505 patients were also recovered from COVID-19 taking the total number of recoveries to 542,393.
