Pakistan begins vaccination of 18-year-olds to reach target of 70m this year

Islamabad: Pakistan on Thursday opened up coronavirus vaccination for all adults to avoid another wave of infections and to reach the target of vaccinating 70 million people by the end of this year.

The government aims to vaccinate 70 million by the end of 2021, says Dr Faisal Sultan, the adviser to the prime minister on health affairs. Experts say that roughly 100 million adults are eligible to receive the vaccine in the country where an estimated 42 per cent of the people are under the age of 14.

National Command and Operation Centre (NCOC) decided to inoculate all 18+ citizens after the country received enough doses to boost the vaccination drive in the country marred by vaccine hesitancy and slow rollout as compared to regional countries.

Pakistan’s health official says the hesitancy not the availability of the vaccine was the issue. “Our problem is hesitancy and we are not alone in this,” Dr Sultan said in a recent interview. Pakistan would have at least 20 million doses by the end of June but the bigger challenge was to address hesitancy and get millions vaccinated. Only 11 million people have so far registered at the government vaccination portal. The government is yet to begin a targeted awareness campaign to deal with vaccine hesitancy.

Pakistan recently approved a $130 million grant (about Rs20 billion) to purchase 10 million doses of COVID-19 vaccine before June 30. Another 10 million will be procured in July, according to officials. The estimated cost to inoculate the target population of 70m is about $1.5bn. Pakistan has so far received nearly 15 million doses of different coronavirus vaccines including Sinopharm, Sinovac, CanSino, Sputnik V, AstraZeneca and Pfizer.

“The acceleration of vaccination drive was made possible by the huge investment by the federal government” says Minister Asad Umar, the chief of NCOC – leading the national fight against the COVID-19 pandemic. So far, the government has spent nearly “a quarter of a billion dollars on the procurement of vaccines” and much more would be spent next year to reach the jabs target.

This week, Pakistan also rolled out 120,000 doses of PakVac after completing the final stage processing (formulation, sterilisation and packaging) of China’s single-shot CanSino vaccine. Pakistan will be able to produce 3 million doses a month of CanSino at the National Institute of Health (NIH) in Islamabad. Dr. Faisal Sultan said the local filling and vaccine technology transfer would significantly reduce the country’s dependence on other countries.

Pakistan is vaccinating citizens aged 18 and above free of cost at government health facilities.

More than 7.9 million vaccine doses have been administered as of June 3 in the country of 220 million. Around 2.1 million people or 2.1 per cent of Pakistan’s 100 million adult population has been fully vaccinated against COVID-19. At least 304,862 people received their COVID-19 jabs in the past 24 hours, as per official stats.

The country recorded 2,028 new infections and 92 fatalities over the past 24 hours.