Covid vaccination in Sindh begins Feb 3

Frontline health workers in 10 districts to be inoculated in first phase

KARACHI:

Vaccination for Covid-19 will start in Sindh from Wednesday, with frontline health workers to be inoculated in the first phase, announced Sindh Information Minister Syed Nasir Hussain Shah on Friday.

He made the announcement during a press conference, where he was accompanied by parliamentary secretary for health department Siraj Qasim Soomro.

The local government minister said frontline health workers – including doctors, paramedics and laboratory technicians directly dealing with Covid-19 patients and samples of infected persons, as well as teams conducting door-to-door tests - in 10 districts of the province would be administered the vaccine initially.

In this regard, Soomro said 170,000 health workers, in all of Karachi's seven districts and Hyderabad, Shaheed Benazirabad and Jamshoro, would be vaccinated in the first phase.

The secretary said the districts were selected on the basis of Covid-19 positivity ratio, adding that the positivity ratio in Karachi was around 22 per cent, in Hyderabad around 26 per cent, and Shaheed Benazirabad had reported the third highest positivity ratio in the province.

Besides, the provincial information minister said Sindh would get 83,359 doses of vaccine from    500,000 that China's Sinopharm would give Pakistan. He said the Sindh government would receive the jabs on Sunday.

Moreover, the minister said, the Sindh health department had set aside Rs1.5 billion for the purchase of vaccines and the Sindh chief minister, too, had allocated funds for the purpose. However, he added, that the Sindh government needed the Centre's permission to procure vaccine doses on its own.

Read: Sindh to raise funds to buy Covid-19 vaccine

"Sindh CM Murad Ali Shah has written to the federal government, seeking permission to purchase the vaccine, but we haven't received a reply yet," he told media persons.

The minister further stated that a private donor group had committed to giving Pakistan vaccine doses for the inoculation of the country's 20 per cent population and its first shipment would arrive in March.

"Sindh Health Minister Dr Azra Fazl Pechuho and the Sindh CM have been trying to procure the vaccine, in line with Pakistan Peoples Party chairperson Bilawal Bhutto Zardari's vision, so as to safeguard the people of Sindh against the virus," he assured.

"For the purpose, the Sindh government has contacted companies and donor agencies across the world."

The minister said a meeting with the World Bank (WB) country head in Pakistan was also held, where the WB's support was sought for procuring vaccine doses.

He said the Sindh government, in order to ensure that people in the province were protected against the contagion, welcomed the private sector's support and assistance for vaccination, albeit adding that private entities must be certified by the relevant authorities.

Replying to a question, the information minister said Prime Minister Imran Khan and ministers in the federal cabinet had been falsely denying that the latest report of the Transparency International did not lay bare the Centre's ineptness.

To another question, the minister replied that the Sindh government had received Rs72 billion less than its share from the federal government.

"The promises they [the Centre] make are never fulfilled," he commented.