Daily Times

The Covid-19 claimed lives of two more senior doctors, one each from Islamabad and Peshawar, on Sunday.

Renowned pharmacist Dr AQ Javed Iqbal and Dr Anila Naseer, a specialised gynaecologist in Peshawar, lost their lives while battling with coronavirus.

During his medical career, Dr Iqbal remained at many key posts in the health ministry and Drug Regulatory Authority of Pakistan (DRAP). He also remained vice president of the Pharmacy Council of Pakistan.

According to a statement released by the Provincial Doctors Association of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, Dr Anila Naseer died at the MH Hospital several days after being placed on a ventilator. She is the 45th doctor in the province to have died of Covid-19.

Dr Anila was a specialised gynaecologist and worked for several years in a government hospital until 2007, when she left her government job to start her own clinic.

Meanwhile, the coronavirus claimed 53 more lives while another 1,346 people tested positive for the deadly disease during the past 24 hours across the country.

According to the data released by the National Command and Operation Centre (NCOC), 1,346 new infections surfaced after 36,954 samples were tested during this period. The positivity ratio of Covid-19 cases was recorded at 3.64 percent.

The total number of confirmed Covid-19 cases in the country has soared to 554,474 with addition of the fresh cases while the countrywide death toll jumped to 11,967. There are a total of 32,265 active cases as 510,242 people have recuperated.

Since the first Covid-19 case was detected in the country almost a year back, Sindh has reported a total of 250,648 infections, Punjab 160,580, Khyber Pakhtunkhwa 68,338, Balochistan 18,859, Islamabad 41,934, Azad Jammu and Kashmir 9,199, and Gilgit Baltistan 4,916.

Meanwhile, Pakistan will get another consignment of the Sinopharm coronavirus vaccine on Monday (today), as half a million doses of the vaccine will be brought to Pakistan via a special flight of the People’s Liberation Army (PLA) Air Force.

Chinese media also confirmed that Pakistan is going to receive another donation of the Sinopharm vaccine but they did not provide details of the doses being sent to Islamabad.

Pakistan has already received 500,000 doses of the Chinese vaccine, which is being used to inoculate frontline healthcare workers in the country. So far, over 12,000 frontline healthcare workers have already been vaccinated.

Health authorities in Pakistan had earlier confirmed that the country will get 6 to 7 million doses of the Oxford-AstraZeneca’s AZD1222 vaccine by the end of the current month, which would be used to inoculate the remaining healthcare workers as well as people above 65 years of age.

Health authorities had said that through the COVAX facility Pakistan will get at least 17 million doses of Oxford-AstraZeneca’s vaccine, while it is also hopeful of getting a few hundred thousand doses of Pfizer-BioNTech’s vaccine “BNT162b2” in donation, for which Ultra Cold Chain (UCC) equipment is also being acquired.

Meanwhile, Drug Regulatory Authority of Pakistan (DRAP) in collaboration with the World Health Organisation (WHO) has arranged a day-long training on Monday (today) for reporting of Covid-19 vaccine adverse events.

This training session is being arranged for capacity building of focal persons. It is the recommendation of WHO and regulatory body that after giving a vaccine, pharma companies are bound to report adverse events if any person has suffered.

Some 582 centres will remain vigilant to report any adverse event to district health officers concerned and will forward to the Expanded Programme on Immunisation’s provincial focal person and national EPI focal person of pharmacovigilance.