ISLAMABAD: The government vaccinated over 200,00 people in the 24 hours to Wednesday with a first dose of the Covid-19 vaccine, a daily record according to official figures, Minister for Planning and Development Asad Umar announced.
The update comes as the government portal registered 4,113 new infections of Covid-19 after conducting 44,838 tests, receiving back a positivity rate of 9.17 per cent.
In a tweet, Umar announced there has been an increase in people signing up for the vaccine and more than five million people have registered themselves to date.
“If you are 40 years of age or older, please get yourselves registered as soon as possible,” he said, urging the nation to continue following health guidelines.
الحمد للہ ایک دن میں ویکسین لگنے کی تعداد کل 2 لاکھ سے تجاوز کر گئی. لوگوں کے ریجسٹر کرنے کے رفتار میں بھی اضافہ ہوا ہے اور اب تک رجسٹر کرنے والوں کی تعداد 50 لاکھ سے تجاوز کر گئی ہے. اگر 40 سال یا اس سے زیادہ عمر ہے تو جلد رجسٹر کریں. اور ساتھ میں حفاظتی اقدامات جاری رکھیں
— Asad Umar (@Asad_Umar) May 5, 2021
The government launched the nationwide Covid-19 vaccination for the general public, starting with older people, in March. The drive began with a focus on the oldest people in the community, generally over the age of 80.
The vaccination of people aged 50 and above began on April 21, and for 40 and above on Monday.
The government is aiming to ramp up the immunisation campaign in the summer and expects to receive 13.2 million doses of Covid-19 vaccines by the end of June. As of Tuesday, it has vaccinated over 2.70 million people and is planning to vaccinate at least 70 million people by the end of this year.
Private hospitals in major cities are also using Russia’s Sputnik-V vaccine that has been imported by a local pharmaceutical company.
Drug Regulatory Authority Of Pakistan (DRAP) has also approved the emergency use of Britain’s AstraZeneca and China’s CoronaVac vaccines, but both are yet to be used in the country.
Umar’s tweet comes days before Pakistan is scheduled to receive the first shipment of 1.2 million doses of the Oxford-Astrazeneca coronavirus vaccine under the World Health Organisation-backed Covid-19 Vaccines Global Access (COVAX) initiative aimed at equitable access to vaccines.
The programme had committed 45 million doses to Pakistan, with deliveries meant to start in March and continue through the year. The first shipment of jabs will finally arrive from South Korea on Friday, Arab News quoted a Ministry of National Health Services official as saying.
“Yes, the first consignment is arriving on 7th May,” the official confirmed. “We are committed to vaccinating our maximum population as quickly as possible.”
Interestingly, only yesterday, Minister of State for Health Dr Faisal Sultan had said the government does not have “any visibility” of 15 million coronavirus vaccine doses that Germany promised to provide by May under the Covax initiative.
Germany agreed to provide the jabs to Islamabad during Foreign Minister Shah Mahmood Qureshi’s visit last month.
“We don’t have any visibility of this delivery at this point,” Sultan told Anadolu Agency in a brief message.
Earlier this week, Sultan, without identifying the producer, had said the government has signed deals to procure 30 million doses.
He said 19 million doses will be received by June and clarified that the government is not reliant on donations but 90 percent of the vaccine stock was, in fact, purchased.
He further announced that domestic packaging of single-dose CanSino vaccine will begin soon. Three million doses a month of the drug will be prepared at the National Institute of Health (NIH) in Islamabad, he added.
The minister had last month announced that by the end of June, the government would have a stock of 17 million vaccine jabs but stopped short of identifying the developer.
“The challenge [for the government] is to deploy and use them. The number of people who have registered is in the hundreds of thousands, not millions, yet we need to vaccinate 40 to 50 million by the end of this year,” he had said in an interview.
