Daily Times

More than 100,000 health workers have been vaccinated against the coronavirus across the country, said Dr Nausheen Hamid, Parliamentary Secretary on Health Services, on Thursday.

Talking to a private television, Dr Nausheen Hamid said that health professionals who are at the forefront of the country’s fight against the deadly disease are being administered the vaccine in the first phase.

She said the process to register citizens aged 65 years and above is underway, asking the people to get themselves registered for the Covid-19 vaccination. She said the situation will further improve with the arrival of more doses of Covid-19 vaccine in the country.

Meanwhile, Pakistan has recorded 64 more coronavirus-related deaths in the past 24 hours, surging the overall death toll to 12,772, said the National Command and Operation Centre (NCOC) on Thursday.

According to the NCOC, 1,361 fresh infections were reported during the aforementioned period. The national tally of cases currently stands at 575,941, while the total count of active cases is 23,281.

In the past 24 hours, as many as 1,681 patients recovered from the virus while 539,888 people have recovered from the deadly disease so far. Around 1,590 patients were stated to be in critical condition. A total of 40,906 tests were conducted across the country during this period, while overall 8,831,892 samples have been tested so far.

So far 257,089 have been reported in Sindh, 169,474 in Punjab, 71,490 in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, 19,010 in Balochistan, 43,901 in Islamabad, 10,022 cases in Azad Jammu and Kashmir and 4,955 in Gilgit-Baltistan.

A countrywide Covid vaccination drive started last month. 0.5 million doses of the Sinopharm vaccine gifted by China are being used in the first phase. Sindh was provided 84,000 doses of the vaccine, Punjab 70,000, KP 65,000, and Balochistan 10,300 doses.

Earlier, Sindh Health Minister Dr Azra Pechuho warned healthcare workers of job termination if they refuse to get themselves vaccinated against the coronavirus. The provincial minister said this while presiding over a meeting on Wednesday on the establishment of adult vaccination centres across the province.

“We have started the process of Covid-19 vaccination in Sindh where all healthcare workers are being registered for the vaccination. All those healthcare workers who do not take part in the process of vaccination and get themselves vaccinated would be terminated,” she said.

She emphasised that healthcare workers not willing to receive the vaccine will receive show-causes notices and won’t be allowed to work as they could potentially cause the spread of the disease and further mutations of the virus.

Many health professionals are showing reluctance to get themselves vaccinated, especially after COVID-19 cases have started declining.

To lure a large number of doctors, paramedics and nurses to get themselves inoculated, the Sindh health department has already announced the payment of a health risk allowance to healthcare workers who would get the vaccine jab. But most frontline workers have been hesitant to get the vaccine dose.