ISLAMABAD: Over 383,000 Pakistanis have received their coronavirus jabs in the past 24 hours, Pakistan’s planning minister said on Sunday, as the country’s vaccination drive is picking up pace.
Pakistan is currently in the middle of its third wave of the pandemic that authorities say has begun to decline, with less than 2,700 new COVID-19 cases recorded in the past 24 hours, and the coronavirus test positivity rate below 5 percent for the sixth consecutive day.
Pakistan has recently ramped up its immunization campaign against the virus and as of Sunday vaccinated over 7 million of its 220 million population. Initially, it had to deal with vaccination hesitancy and a shortage of vaccine supplies, but now over 300,000 people are vaccinated every day, with a new record set on Saturday.
“New record of vaccination was set in one day yesterday. A total of more than 383,000 were vaccinated. So far more than 7 million have been vaccinated. The number of registrants is also steadily increasing, and 11.663 million people have registered,” Planning Minister Asad Umar, who also heads the National Command and Operations Center (NCOC), which oversees the country’s pandemic response, said in a tweet.
Last week, Pakistan opened its vaccination campaign for all individuals aged 19 or older. From Saturday, those above the age of 30 are eligible for walk-in vaccination at all vaccination centers across the country.
Pakistan has so far secured over 18 million doses of various vaccines with the help of China and the World Health Organization (WHO), with millions more in the pipeline according to officials.
More than 100,000 doses of the Pfizer coronavirus vaccine arrived in Pakistan through the COVAX facility on Friday. The first COVAX batch arrived on May 8, with over 1.2 million doses of the AstraZeneca vaccine.
Pakistan has also successfully started local production of the Chinese single-shot vaccine, CanSino.
