WHO lauds Pak’s ‘excellent’ virus vaccination campaign
Vaccination of citizens aged 50-59 against coronavirus started; Umar warns of more restrictions across the country; 148 deaths, 5,499 new virus cases reported; India included in list of travel ban countries
The World Health Organisation (WHO) representative in Pakistan Dr Palitha Mahipala on Wednesday lauded Pakistan’s COVID-19 vaccination efforts.
Taking to Twiter, he said: “I appreciate efforts of the Government of Pakistan for rolling out COVID-19 vaccination including vaccination of foreigners in the National Vaccine Deployment Plan & making excellent arrangements at the vaccination centres across Pakistan, with COVID-19 Standard Operating Procedures (SOPS) in place.”
Meanwhile, Pakistan started vaccinating people in the age group 50-59 against COVID-19 on Wednesday. The National Command and Operation Centre ( NCOC) last week decided to start vaccination of citizens aged from 50 to 59 from April 21.
Federal Minister for Planning Asad Umar on Wednesday warned of more restrictions due to the deteriorating COVID-19 pandemic situation across the country.
“At the NCOC we reviewed the pandemic situation, which is bad. We have taken several decisions to impose more curbs which would be announced on Friday,” Umar said, adding that right now we are not closing major cities but we just have a margin of a few days.
Umar, who heads the NCOC, urged the people to register themselves for the vaccination.
Pakistan is expected to receive two million doses of COVID-19 vaccine from China by April 24.
“The vaccine will arrive in four phases from April 21 to 24,” they said, adding that three special planes and a PIA flight would be used to bring the COVID-19 doses from China.
According to sources, out of the two million doses, 1.5 million would be purchased from China while 500,000 would be provided as a git from the neighbouring country.
Also on Wednesday, Pakistan reported 148 new fatalities, taking the total death tally to 16,600, as the coronavirus situation deteriorates during the third wave in the country.
As per the statistics issued by the NCOC, 5,499 new positive cases have been reported in the last 24 hours ater 47,301 tests were conducted across Pakistan.
According to the official figures, the death toll from COVID-19 in the country has risen to 16,600 and the total number of cases has reached 772,381, while the number of active cases is 83,162.
A total of 5,488 patients have recovered from the virus in the last 24 hours across the country, bringing the total number of recoveries to 672,619.
Punjab currently leads the provinces and federating units with 276,535 cases, Sindh is second with 274,196 cases, Khyber Pakhtunkhwa (KP) has reported 108,462 cases, Balochistan 21,127 cases and Azad Jammu and Kashmir 15,873 cases.
The worsening of the pandemic situation has led to stringent restrictions from the NCOC to curb the spread of the virus.
Umar said that the oxygen supply capacity is now under stress amid the third wave of coronavirus. Critical care patients are now above 4500, which is 30% higher than the peak in June last year, he tweeted.
Meanwhile, the NCOC is considering puting restrictions on the entry of passengers from more countries ater slapping a ban on India to prevent the spread of the Indian variant in Pakistan through any other country.
Currently, there is a ban on travellers from 23 high-risk countries to prevent the spread of deadly COVID variants, while people from as many as 20 countries are allowed to enter Pakistan without any Covid-related restriction. For travelers coming from all the other countries, a negative Covid-19 PCR test is mandatory before the travel date.
The NCOC in its last siting was briefed about the spread of the new Indian variant (double mutant variant) - considered responsible for the present surge in cases in India - ater which it decided to include India in the list of C-category countries for two weeks, prohibiting entry of inbound passengers from India via air and land routes.
Pakistan’s Civil Aviation Authority again updated its travel advisory puting a complete travel ban on international travellers from 23 Category C countries.
“The temporary measure is being introduced in continuation to the steps being taken to contain the spread of Covid-19 in Pakistan,” the revised leter said.