More doses fly in to boost vaccine coffers

64,000 doses of Pfizer vaccine reach Islamabad; 16-year-old students to get Moderna shots

ISLAMABAD:

Pakistan received another batch of 64,000 doses of Pfizer vaccine, while the authorities allowed Moderna doses, donated by the US government under the COVAX arrangements, to be administered to the students up to 16 years of age, seeking to go abroad for studies.

The government is boosting the national vaccine coffers as the country battled the fourth wave of coronavirus, fuelled by a deadlier and fast spreading Delta variant of the virus, which emerged in India earlier this year.

According to the health ministry officials, 64,000 doses of Pfizer vaccines reached Islamabad on Friday.

They added that the vaccine was purchased by the government. They added that the ministry had also allowed the Russian-made Sputnik vaccine at vaccine centres in Islamabad.

The officials said that Pakistani citizens over the age of 18 years, could receive the Sputnik-V shot by visiting the three vaccination centres in the federal capital from Saturday (today). They added that the second shot of Sputnik would be administered after 21 days.

The National Command and Operation Centre (NCOC), which supervises the government’s unified effort against the Covid pandemic, said on Friday that the students, who wanted to go abroad for the studies would be administered Moderna vaccine.

Pakistan has received millions of doses of Moderna which were donated by the US government in recent weeks. The NCOC said in a Tweet that the vaccination would be administered to all the people above the 18 years of age.

“However, the students aged 16-18 years, who need to go abroad for study to universities requiring mandatory vaccination will be administered Moderna vaccine. The vaccination to such students would be administered after checking valid visa/university documents,” the NCOC added.

Dr Faisal Sultan, the special assistant to the prime minister on health, also confirmed that children between the ages of 16 to 18 years were eligible to get the vaccine, if they had to go overseas for education or other reasons.

The national vaccination campaign, which kicked off in February, is open to all citizens over the age of 18 years. In recent weeks, the authorities have stepped the campaign, administering more than 1 million jabs every day.

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Dr Sultan said in a tweet that so far more than 30 million people have received the Covid jabs. He added that 10 million jabs had been administered in just 16 days, which is eight times faster rate than the first 10 million jabs were administered.

“Over 1 Million COVID vaccine doses administered in Pakistan yesterday - highest nmbr so far. We’ve also crossed 30 million (cumulative) doses. Last 10 million doses took 16 days - 8x faster than what it took to administer first 10 million. Kudos to all who hv made this happn,” he tweeted.

The government planned to vaccinate 70 million people by the end of this year. However, out of 30 million people, who had received the vaccines, only 7 million were those having both shots. The number is 10% of the total vaccination target.

The vaccination campaign has been stepped up after the Covid fourth wave spread across the country. The NCOC said in its daily update of the disease that national tally of active cases reached close to 80,000 for the first time since May 12.

The forum said that the national tally of active Covid-19 cases rose to 79,992 on Friday, as 4,745 more people tested positive for the infection while 2,095 people recovered from the disease during the last 24 hours. it added that the national positivity rate was 8.18%.

Among the active cases, more than 4,000 patients were admitted to 639 Covid-dedicated health facilities across the country.

The NCOC said that 4,157 patients were in critical condition, including 409 on ventilators. It added that 107 patients were brought to hospitals during the last 24 hours.

The update said that 67 patients, of them 60 whom were under treatment in the hospitals, including 27 on ventilators died on Thursday, taking the national death toll to 23,702. Most of the deaths, 28, occurred in Sindh, followed by 19 in Punjab.

The Pakistan Medical Association (PMA) said on Friday that the fatalities in Sindh included 73 medics, who died after contracting Covid. It confirmed that two doctors – one of them fully vaccinated against Covid-19 – succumbed to the disease in Karachi on Friday.

Dr Nisar Ali Shah, former senior medico-legal officer at Dr Ruth Pfau Civil Hospital, and Dr Farzana Memon, a gynecologist, both from Naushehroferoze district, had contracted the virus a few days ago, according to Dr Qaiser Sajjad of the PMA.

According to the NCOC, the national caseload of the disease rose to 1,058,405, since pandemic broke out in the country in February 2020. Since then, the NCOC update said, 954,711 people have recovered from the disease so far.

(WITH INPUT FROM APP)