KARACHI: Authorities in Pakistan's southern Sindh province on Tuesday opened a vaccination centre at the Karachi Press Club (KPC) while vaccinations also began at the national press club in Islamabad as well as the Rawalpindi-Islamabad Press Club, journalists' bodies said.

Earlier this month, the country's first vaccine centre for media workers was set up at the Lahore Press Club.

At least 26 journalists have died of the coronavirus and 300 infected by the disease in Pakistan since February last year, Zulfiqar Ali Mehto, chairman of the COVID-19 Rescue Committee of the Pakistan Federation Union of Journalists, told Arab News. 

However, last month's passing away from COVID of senior journalist Mirza Khurram Baig has put the spotlight on the threats posed to the community by the pandemic.

More than a thousand journalists have died from the coronavirus in 73 countries since the start of the pandemic, the Press Emblem Campaign announced in Geneva last month.

This Sunday, information minister Chaudhry Fawad Hussain said journalists were “frontline workers” who needed timely protected and pledged to set up a coronavirus vaccine centre at the Islamabad Press Club in the national capital.

The centre in Karachi, inaugurated by the Sindh Health Department on Tuesday, will remain functional for a week, with journalists and their family members above 30 years of age being able to get vaccinated upon presenting their national ID cards.

“We welcome the Sindh government’s initiative to facilitate journalists,” Rizwan Bhatti, secretary of the Karachi Press Club, told Arab News, saying the step should have been taken long ago.

“Journalists, especially reporters, photographers and cameramen, are frontline workers like doctors and paramedics who have been creating awareness about COVID-18 through informed reporting from field,” Bhatti said, urging the National Command and Operation Centre (NCOC), Pakistan’s federal pandemic response body, to remove the age limit so all vulnerable journalists could receive shots.

Speaking to Arab News after the inauguration, Karachi Press Club President Fazil Jamili said the vaccination of journalists would set a good precedent in terms of raising awareness about vaccines and also help in tackling hesitancy.

Sindh government spokesperson Murtaza Wahab said the provincial government was committed to protecting everyone against the virus, including journalists.

“Similar vaccination centres have also been established at arts council and industrial areas for facilitating citizens to get the vaccine,” he told Arab News.

Shakeel Anjum, president of the Islamabad Press Club, said vaccinations had started today, Tuesday, at both at the Islamabad and the Rawalpindi-Islamabad press clubs.