Daily Times

The federal capital is pushing ahead with the Covid-19 vaccination drive, said a senior health official on Wednesday, adding that the authorities had administered shots to 55 percent of its population while aiming to immunise at least 70 percent of the city’s residents by the end of August. “All vaccination centres in the capital are running smoothly and we are administering between 10,000 and 15,000 doses to people every day,” said Dr Amjad Mehmood, a focal person at the city’s Covid-19 nerve centre. He added that the capital territory administration had vaccinated over 600,000 people since February when the nationwide vaccination drive was launched. The provinces are lagging behind in terms of their targets due to various reasons, including vaccine hesitancy and low turnout at the designated immunisation facilities. Mehmood said all vaccination centres in the federal capital have resumed full operation after a “brief interruption” due to vaccine shortage. “We are vaccinating elderly people at their homes since many of them cannot visit these centers due to illnesses or disabilities,” he continued. “We have succeeded in flattening the Covid-19 curve in Islamabad through vaccination.” The South Asian nation of 220 million has procured about 18 million jabs since January from various sources, including COVAX, a global vaccine-sharing facility for developing countries led by the World Health Organization. Pakistan has also allocated $1.1 billion for fiscal year 2022 to procure various coronavirus vaccines. The government says it plans to inoculate 70 million people by next year. So far, Pakistan has administered more than 13.8 million doses to its citizens.