ISLAMABAD, Feb 3 (APP)::Special Assistant to the Prime Minister on National Health Services, Regulations and Coordination Dr Faisal Sultan on Wednesday said the government had fixed the target of covering 70 percent eligible COVID-19 recipients by the end of year.
Dr Faisal Sultan, in a media briefing here at National Command and Operation Centre (NCOC) on occasion of official launch of COVID-19 vaccination activities across the country, said the government had capacity to vaccinate 40,000 eligible recipients against COVID-19 in a day, which would be further expanded.
He said so far the government haf received 500,000 doses of COVID-19 vaccine as a gift from China. The federal and all provincial governments had formally launched vaccination activities in their respective areas from today while vaccinating frontline health workers, he added.
Dr Faisal said Chinese Sinopharm was a good vaccine with 79-86 percent efficacy rate during trial in China and Hungary while its effectiveness ratio was 86% in the United Arab Emrites, and it would be helpful in controlling COVID-19 in Pakistan.
He said out of the country’s 220 million population, around 100 million citizens were eligible for COVID-19 vaccine, one third of them would be covered during the current year.
He said under GAVI-COVAX programme for countries, Pakistan was also likely to receive 17 million doses of COVID-19 vaccine by end of June. Seven million doses would be available in the first quarter and 10 million doses in the second quarter.
The use of this vaccine would be started by the end of current month, he added.
Dr Faisal said Pakistan was also in touch with other countries to get 73 million doses of the vaccine, which were likely to receive in the last quarter.
He said the government had completed training of vaccinators and other related staff while a software had been developed for having daily figures of vaccination activities.
He said the vaccine was safe and there were no side-effects, however minor fever or body pain was expected after vaccination.
Head of National Immunization Management System (NIMS), Usman Zia said the registration of frontline healthcare workers for vaccination had been in process for the last two weeks.
He said there was a procedure for vaccination of frontline healthcare workers like knowing eligibility from 1166, registration status from SMS and informing about vaccination centre and sate of vaccination. The eligible recipient should have a pin code and CNIC for last stage of vaccination at allocated vaccination centre.
He said the vaccination team would inform the recipient about date and place of second dose while there would be 30 minutes monitoring of any side-effect after administration of the dose.
