ISLAMABAD: Pakistan’s federal pandemic response body, the NCOC, said on Tuesday 25% of the country’s total population had been vaccinated against the coronavirus.
Pakistan in May opened up its coronarvirus vaccination campaign to everyone aged 19 or older as it scrambled to protect more of its 220 million people. Before that, the national inoculation drive, which kicked off in February, had prioritised healthcare workers and the elderly.
“25% of total and 37% of eligible population of Pakistan stands vaccinated,” the NCOC said on Twitter.
“Vaccine administered across Pakistan in last 24 hours: 916,314. Total vaccine administered till now: 134,818,017.”
Pakistan has recorded over 1.2 million infections since February last year, with 28,839 deaths. According to the NCOC, over 85 million people have received at least one dose of a COVID-19 vaccine.
On Monday, the National Institute of Health in Islamabad confirmed the country’s first case of the omicron coronavirus variant.
The NIH said in a tweet:
“The NIH has been able to confirm ... that a recently suspected sample from Karachi is indeed the ‘omicron variant. This is the first confirmed case but continued surveillance of suspected samples is in place to identify the trends.”
