First phase: Covid vaccination drive continues in Islamabad

ISLAMABAD: The first phase of coronavirus vaccination drive has commenced in the federal capital and vaccines are being administered to the frontline health workers in different medical facilities, ARY News reported on Thursday.

The health authorities have established vaccination counters at different locations in Islamabad. Currently, the vaccination of health workers was underway at six government hospitals of the federal capital.

The facilities include Pakistan Institute of Medical Sciences (PIMS), Poly Clinic, CDA, Social Security, National Institute of Rehabilitation Medicine (NIRM) and Federal General Hospital (FGH).

District Health Officer (DHO) Islamabad Dr Zaeem Zia said that 8,000 vaccines have been allocated for frontline health workers during the first phase of the ongoing vaccination drive. 7,000 health workers will be vaccinated and 30-minute monitoring will be observed after the administration of the COVID-190 vaccine.

Read: PAF plane carrying first batch of COVID-19 vaccine reaches Islamabad

Yesterday, a countrywide anti-Covid-19 vaccination drive formally started almost a year after the outbreak of the novel coronavirus in the country. The campaign had been launched simultaneously in Islamabad, Lahore, Karachi, Quetta and Peshawar.

Healthcare workers had been administered first shots of the Sinopharm vaccine at a special ceremony at the National Command and Operation Center (NCOC) in Islamabad.

Covax programme

In another development on February 4, the Covax programme to ensure equitable worldwide access to Covid-19 vaccines had published its first distribution list, with enough doses for countries to immunise more than three per cent of their populations by mid-2021.

The distribution plan comes with lower-income countries falling behind in the vaccination race — a problem Covax was set up to address. It broke down how the programme’s initial 337.2 million doses will be distributed, with first deliveries expected in late February.

Some 145 countries are set to receive enough doses to immunise 3.3 per cent of their collective population by mid-2021, Covax said.

Countries will receive doses in proportion to population size, with the most going to India (97.2 million), Pakistan (17.2 million), Nigeria (16 million), Indonesia (13.7 million), Bangladesh (12.8 million) and Brazil (10.6 million).

Other big recipients are Ethiopia (8.9 million), the Democratic Republic of Congo (6.9 million), Mexico (6.5 million), the Philippines (5.6 million) and Egypt (5.1 million).