Govt’s vaccination target fully in sight

Asad Umar says 20m fully vaccinated, 50m receive first jab

The country crossed a welcome milestone in the nationwide vaccination campaign against coronavirus, as the number of fully vaccinated people topped 20 million, Planning Minister Asad Umar, who supervised the national strategy against the pandemic, announced on Friday.

The announcement comes as the single-day tally of new Covid cases fell below 4,000 level recorded a day earlier, and a decline in the national positivity ratio to 6.03% from 6.43% registered on Thursday.

Umar, who heads the National Command and Operation Centre (NCOC) tweeted on Friday, saying that more than 20 million people had been fully vaccinated against Covid-19 in Pakistan, while 50 million people had received the first dose of vaccine.

“In the early days of the vaccination campaign we had set a daunting target of vaccinating 7 crore [70 million] people by the end of this year. Happy to report that 5 crore people have now recieved atleast 1 dose. More than 2 crore fully vaccinated. Inshallah will meet & surpass the target,” he tweeted.

In the early days of the vaccination campaign we had set a daunting target of vaccinating 7 crore people by the end of this year. Happy to report that 5 crore people have now recieved atleast 1 dose. More than 2 crore fully vaccinated. Inshallah will meet & surpass the target.

— Asad Umar (@Asad_Umar) September 10, 2021

Meanwhile, the NCOC said in its daily update of the disease that the national tally of active Covid cases fell to 91,440, as 3,689 more people tested positive for the virus while 3,755 people recovered from the disease during the last 24 hours.

The forum said that at present, 5,578 patients were admitted to various Covid-dedicated healthcare facilities across the country, adding that 5,368 of them were still in critical condition. According to the update, 525 patients were on ventilators.

Read Pakistan’s Covid-19 deaths lowest in region: Asad Umar

The NCOC said that 83 patients, 75 of whom in the hospitals, including 27 on ventilators, died during the past 24 hours. Most of the deaths, 36, occurred in Punjab followed by 25 in Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa (K-P) and 16 in Sindh.

As of Thursday, the national caseload of the disease, since the pandemic outbreak in February 2020, rose to 1,197,887, including 1,079,867 recoveries. The nationwide death toll had risen to 26,580, the NCOC bulletin added.

 

(WITH INPUT FROM APP)