ISLAMABAD: Starting Monday, Pakistani residents aged 65 and above can sign up for a COVID-19 vaccination program by texting their identity card details to a dedicated number, health officials said.

“All Pakistanis above the age of 65 can start registration for COVID-19 vaccine starting today,” Dr. Faisal Sultan, Prime Minister Imran Khan’s adviser on public health, tweeted on Monday.

For the process, he added, elderly residents would need to “send an SMS with your CNIC (Computer National Identity Card) to 1166” or visit www.nims.nadra.gov.pk.

“Vacc [vaccination] center and date of apt [appointment] will be communicated once vaccine arrives,” his tweet read.

The latest move follows the first phase of the campaign, which was launched on Feb. 3 and inoculated frontline health care workers.

In a statement on Sunday, the British High Commission in Islamabad said that Pakistan would receive seven million jabs – out of the 17 million doses pledged by UK-developed Oxford-AstraZeneca vaccine makers – before April.

“Through the Covax facility, Pakistan will take the delivery of 17m doses of the UK-developed Oxford University-Astra-Zeneca vaccine shortly, with the first 7m [million] expected before April,” the British high commission said in a statement.

“The next 10m doses will come later, likely before June. This will help protect 8.5m people from the virus, which has already claimed over 12,000 lives in Pakistan.”

The more than one billion dollar program was launched in April 2020 and is led by the World Health Organization (WHO), along with the GVA and the Coalition for Epidemic Preparedness Innovations.

Covax has committed to supplying Pakistan with 45 million jabs this year, in addition to the UK providing £20 million in aid to Pakistan to fight the pandemic.

“The people of the UK and Pakistan have come together to fight COVID-19,” British High Commissioner Dr. Christian Turner CMG said in the statement.

“The Covax facility has been the main way the world has united to make sure all countries get the vaccines they need as quickly as possible, including Pakistan. The UK has been a world leader in supporting Covax, and Covax has committed to supplying Pakistan with COVID-19 vaccines for 45m people this year,” he added.

As of Monday, Pakistan had reported 1,048 new infections of the novel coronavirus and 26 deaths in the past 24 hours taking the total fatality count to 12,333.