ISLAMABAD: Pakistan has immunized against the coronavirus over half of children aged 12 and above, the country’s vaccine czar said on Thursday.
A special drive at schools to make it easier for children to be vaccinated started in late September.
Planning Minister Asad Umar, who leads the country’s anti-virus strategy, said in a Twitter post that over 5.5 million kids between the ages 12 and 18 have received at least one dose of a COVID-19 vaccine.
“More than half the students between the ages of 12 and 18 have been vaccinated with at least 1 dose. Total students vaccinated so far exceeds 5.5 million,” Umar said.
He added that in Gilgit Baltistan 68 percent eligible schoolchildren have already received their first jabs, followed by Punjab where the vaccination rate among kids was 62 percent.
Pakistan started its general vaccination campaign in February and has since administered at least one vaccine dose to over 116 million of its 220 million population. So far 76.7 million people have been fully vaccinated.
Amid ramped-up immunization efforts, the country’s coronavirus positivity rate has dropped significantly in recent months.
In the last 24 hours, it was 1.3 percent as Pakistan logged 637 fresh infections over the past 24 hours.
