Sindh govt to suspend salaries of officials not inoculated against Covid-19

Chief Minister Sindh Murad Ali Shah warned on Thursday that salaries of provincial government officials would be suspended from July if they fail to get vaccinated for Covid-19 and said vaccinations are now mandatory for all citizens of the province. 

The provincial chief executive passed the instructions on to the finance department while presiding over a meeting of the provincial task force on coronavirus at CM House.

According to spokesperson Abdul Rashid Chana, CM Murad directed authorities to set up 300 BHUs (basic health units) vaccination centres and gave a target of 30,000 inoculations per day.

Murad further gave a target of 60,000 Covid-19 inoculations on a daily basis to mobile vaccination teams and a target of 10,000 jabs per day to private hospitals.

While briefing the forum, Health Secretary Dr Kazim Jatoi said that about 26,812 people coming to the province were tested out of which 55 were positive.

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He further apprised that on May 29, four people were diagnosed with the Indian variant and were kept in isolation. The four patients also came in contact with 14 other people who were also being tested or the variant.

“On June 1, there were 12.45% positive cases and on June 2, 11.77% positive cases in Karachi. About 9% were in Karachi South, 8% in Karachi West with seven deaths. Karachi Central accounted for 12% of cases and 15 deaths. There have been 392 deaths in Sindh during the last 30 days,” the health secretary added.

Out of 392 deaths in the province, 238 were on ventilators, Jatoi further apprised the forum and said that at present, 77 patients were on ventilators out of which 74 were in Karachi.

The Sindh chief minister was informed that about 57, 541 vaccines had been given on June 2 and so far, about 1,550,553 doses of the Covid vaccine had been administered in Sindh.