40% of Peshawar, Mansehra vaccinated

Inoculation process paced up after NCOC order

PESHAWAR:

Two districts in Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa (K-P) have achieved 40 per cent Covid-19 vaccination target successfully.

Official sources told The Express Tribune that in Peshawar district 41 per cent of the population had been vaccinated while in Mansehra district it had reached 42 per cent.

“The National Command and Control Center (NCCC) had set a 40 per cent vaccination target for all the provinces, Gilgat Baltistan and Azad Jammu and Kashmir within 15 days. After this the vaccination pace was increased,” said an official of the Health Department, adding that all large cities across the country including Lahore, Karachi and Quetta have yet to vaccinate their 40 per cent populations despite hectic efforts but in Peshawar the target had been achieved.

“Only in Islamabad the target has been surpassed at 56 per cent, Mirpur 66 per cent and Gilgat Baltistan at 66 per cent,” he informed, adding that in K-P a 33 per cent vaccination has been completed in Abbotabad, 28 per cent in Swat and 24 per cent in Nowshera, Mardan and Charsadda.

“These districts have been given a deadline to achieve the target by August 14 and it has also been decided that the vaccination process will continue even on independence day,” he said, adding that around seven per cent of population in the province has been vaccinated so far.

The number of people who received their first dose stands at 56 lakh and those who got both the jabs are 14 lakh in the K-P. Around 1.5 lakh are being vaccinated on daily basis.

“The Health Department has set a target of vaccinating 10.9 million people in the province till December this year. And to achieve this more vaccination points will be created including mass vaccination centres and a door to door vaccination drive will be launched in more districts of the province,” said the official.

On the other hand the number of Covid patients has constantly been on the rise at the hospital across the province. The situation is especially worrisome at Ayub Teaching Hospital (ATH) where 160 corona patients are under treatment and in the last 48 hours around 13 of them succumbed to the diseases. There are a total of 500 Covid patients under treatment in the four largest MTI hospitals in the province including Lady Reading Hospital (LRH). The over all Covid-19 positivity ratio in the province in four to five per cent.

Published in The Express Tribune, August 13^th, 2021.