ISLAMABAD: A COVID-19 vaccine campaign will be simultaneously launched at 11am on Wednesday, today, in all federating units of Pakistan, said the NCOC, the federal agency overseeing the pandemic response.
On Tuesday, Pakistani Prime Minister Imran Khan urged all health care workers to get vaccinated as the South Asian nation of 220 million launched its vaccine drive at a ceremony in the capital where a doctor was the first in the country to officially receive a dose.
Pakistan has reported 1,384 new infections and 56 deaths over the last 24 hours, taking the total number of cases to 549,032, with 11,802 deaths.
“COVID inoculation will take place simultaneously at 11:00 hours in all federating units,” the NCOC said in a statement.
In Islamabad, the ceremony will be chaired by planning minister Asad Umar. Kickoff ceremonies will also be held in the provinces of Sindh, Punjab and Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, as well as in Azad Jammu and Kashmir and Gilgit-Baltistan.
“Dr. Rana Imran Sikander who heads the Covid ward at PIMS [a hospital in Islamabad] became the first person to receive Covid vaccination to kick off the national Covid vaccination drive in Pakistan,” planning minister Umar tweeted on Tuesday.
Around 500,000 doses of a vaccine produced by China’s Sinopharm arrived in Pakistan on a military flight on Monday. China has donated the doses for free.
“I congratulate my team which has worked promptly and vaccine was imported,” the prime minister said in an address during the televised ceremony on Tuesday. “We are also thankful to China which has provided the vaccine. Just like the vaccine has been inoculated to a doctor, it will be given to frontline health care workers who have been dealing with COVID-19 patients.”
“In a second phase, people of an age group [over 65] will be vaccinated,” the PM said. “Vaccine is being distributed fairly in all the provinces and no one should think that one province has been getting more doses.”
Pakistan has also been pledged 17 million doses of AstraZeneca’s COVID-19 vaccine under a global scheme to deliver coronavirus treatments to developing nations. About 6 million doses will arrive by the end of March under the COVAX scheme, with the remainder due by mid-year.
