Covid-19 SOPs breached as vaccination of people over 60 begins

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ISLAMABAD: People in Islamabad crowded the Polyclinic Hospital on Wednesday as the second phase of the coronavirus vaccination drive targeting people who are 60-year-old or above began.

Large hoards of senior citizens and a few youths assisting them were seeing cramped in tiny spaces, not observing the government-issued health guidelines, while officials turned a blind eye to the scenes.

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Those sitting in waiting areas were also seated right next to each other while a few people were roaming around with their masks below the nose.

The government is currently using the Chinese Sinopharm vaccine.

Pakistan hopes to start receiving the AstraZeneca-Oxford vaccine this month under the World Health Organisation’s (WHO) COVAX initiative. Authorities expect to receive 17 million doses of coronavirus vaccines under the scheme from March to June.

The government portal keeping track of the outbreak in Pakistan on Wednesday reported 1,786 new infections of the coronavirus after conducting 39,425 tests, receiving back a positivity ratio of 4.53 per cent.

The government launched a nationwide vaccination campaign on February 3, with more than 400,000 doctors and frontline healthcare workers, teachers, and social workers being covered in the first phase because they run the highest risk of exposure to the contagious disease.

As per the roll-out plan, the second phase which started Wednesday will focus exclusively on citizens over the age of 60, who generally face a higher mortality risk from the virus, and all remaining healthcare workers, while the general public would be accommodated in the third phase.

In Lahore, the jabs will be administered at the Expo Centre.

Pakistan received its first tranche of the Sinopharm jabs, given by China as a “gift”, earlier this month. The shipment marked the first shots to be imported into the country where more than 595,239 cases of the disease have been reported since the outbreak in February last year.