Pakistani doctors urge government to increase pace of COVID-19 vaccination campaign

ISLAMABAD: Pakistani doctors on Friday urged the government to expedite the coronavirus vaccination drive across the country to protect people against COVID-19 and keep the national economy operational.
Pakistan started its immunization campaign in February and has so far administered 16.3 million doses. It aims to inoculate about 65 million people by the end of the year, which doctors and experts say will only be possible if the government increases the pace of its vaccination drive since it is the only way to decisively defeat the virus.
“As the daily infection rate has dropped, it is time to vaccinate a maximum number of people before a new wave of the pandemic sets in,” Dr. Qaisar Sajjad, secretary general of the Pakistan Medical Association, told Arab News on Friday, adding that the government should start mobile vaccination service to reach as many people as possible on a daily basis, especially in the rural areas where people face transportation problems and cannot always reach designated vaccine centers in cities.
“The government also needs to improve the vaccine supply at the designated facilities and create awareness about the benefits of COVID-19 jabs,” he continued.
The country’s population breakdown shows that more than 125 million people are above the age of 18 and therefore eligible for vaccination in Pakistan. In Punjab, 66 million people are eligible while in Sindh, Khyber Pakhtunkhwa and Balochistan this number stands at 27.5 million, 19 million and 6.4 million respectively.
About 2.7 million citizens of Azad Jammu and Kashmir, 1.4 million people of Islamabad and 1.1 million residents of Gilgit-Baltistan are also eligible for the vaccine.
According to the official data available with Arab News, Punjab has administered 8.8 million doses so far at its 669 COVID-19 vaccine centers.
Hammad Raza Bukhari, a spokesperson for the Punjab health department, told Arab News that daily vaccination target in the province was 250,000 shots, claiming that provincial authorities were administering over 200,000 doses daily.
Sindh province has administered over 3.6 million doses with 10.33 percent of total coverage. Documents show the daily coverage percentage in the province was well below the target of 16.8 percent.
Mehar Khursheed, a spokesperson for the Sindh health department, said the provincial government was trying to increase daily vaccination through social mobilization and by making shots mandatory for schoolteachers and people working in shopping malls, industries and the transportation sector.
“Mobile vaccination service is already in action,” she said. “We are vaccinating people in the far-flung areas through mobile units by using single dose CanSino.”
The Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province has administered 1.8 million doses to date, with 7.76 percent of the targeted population covered.
The government allocated $1.2 billion for the purchase of COVID-19 vaccines during this fiscal year.