ISLAMABAD: Federal Minister for Planning Asad Umar said on Wednesday that hundreds of vaccination centres will begin administering the vaccine to healthcare and frontline workers from next week.
Making the announcement on Twitter, the minister said that a “system for vaccination is in place. Hundreds of vaccination centres in the country will be administering Covid vaccine”.
“Insha’Allah, the vaccination of frontline health workers will start next week,” he added.
The National Command and Operations Centre (NCOC) earlier today finalised the national coronavirus vaccination strategy as the country expects the first shipment of a Chinese vaccine by the coming Sunday.
The government has approved three Covid-19 vaccines, including Russia’s Sputnik-V, China’s Sinopharm and UK’s Oxford-AstraZeneca, for emergency use in the country.
A step-by-step guide of NCOC’s plan to get the coronavirus vaccine is given below:
In the first step, at-risk citizens, including frontline healthcare workers, will send their Computerised National Identity Card (CNIC) numbers to 1166 through SMS or use National Immunisation Management System (NIMS) website for registration.
After necessary verification, designated AVC (Adult Vaccine Centre) (based on “Present Address” and PIN Code will be sent to the citizen through SMS).
If the designated AVC is outside the current tehsil of the citizen, he/she can change the designated health facility by visiting NIMS web portal or by calling 1166 helpline within 5 days of receipt of the first SMS.
Upon availability of vaccine at the designated vaccination centre, SMS will be sent to the citizen to obtain an appointment date for vaccine administration.
After successful registration, the citizen will visit AVC on date of appointment along with original CNIC and received PIB Code. The vaccination staff will verify the CNIC and PIN code.
After successful verification, the citizen will be vaccinated. Upon vaccine administration, vaccination staff will enter the details in NIMS and confirmation message will be sent to the citizen through SMS. The citizen will stay in AVC for 30 minutes for the post-inoculation monitoring.
In the last step, a real-time dashboard for the federal, provincial and district health department will be generated automatically.
In this regard, Special Assistant to the Prime Minister (SAPM) on National Health Services Dr Faisal Sultan has said that so far 400,000 health workers have been registered for vaccination.
Participating in an online workshop pertaining to health, he said that China has gifted half-million doses of the vaccine to Pakistan, which will be made available to the people free of cost.
The special assistant said that in the first phase, frontline health workers will be vaccinated, while in the second phase, senior citizens will be administered with anti-pandemic medicine.
Dr Faisal stressed the need for adhering to precautionary measures to prevent the spread of the Covid-19 pandemic. He urged the media to play its due role in creating awareness in this regard.
Meanwhile, the NCOC has decided that all remaining educational institutions, particularly primary and middle schools as well as universities, shall resume classes from February 1.
The forum, after a detailed discussion with all stakeholders on Wednesday, decided that students in Karachi, Hyderabad, Lahore and Peshawar would attend classes with 50 per cent strength on alternate days.
The NCOC session was chaired by Federal Minister for Planning, Development and Special Initiatives Asad Umar along with NCOC National Coordinator Lieutenant General Hamood Uz Zaman Khan.
Federal Minister for Education Shafqat Mehmood also attended the meeting, whereas the provincial health minister of Sindh and chief secretaries of all federating units joined the meeting through video-link.
The forum has decided to reopen the education sector with strict recommendations of staggered classes for three days a week in the urban centres, in light of the higher coronavirus positivity ratio reported there. However, universities would resume operations as per the usual schedule.
The forum was informed that, globally, the disease trend had witnessed a hike after the complete reopening of the education sector, therefore the approach to cut down the attendance on a given day would help in reducing the resurgence of the contagion.
It was also informed that vaccination centres have been established all across the country, wherein staff training and other arrangements have been completed to kick-start coronavirus inoculation.
While the schools are reopening, the need for caution is still high as the coronavirus claimed 74 more lives while another 1,563 people tested positive for the deadly disease during the past 24 hours across the country.
According to the NCOC, 1,563 new infections surfaced after 41,285 samples were tested. The total number of confirmed Covid-19 cases in the country has soared to 537,477 while the countrywide death toll jumped to 11,450. There are a total of 33,820 active cases.
Since the first Covid-19 case was detected in the country almost a year back, Sindh has reported a total of 242,793 infections, Punjab 155,214, Khyber Pakhtunkhwa (KP) 65,953, Balochistan 18,765, Islamabad 40,972, Azad Jammu and Kashmir (AJK) 8,877, and Gilgit-Baltistan (GB) 4,903.
Meanwhile, the Sindh health department has set up 14 vaccination centres in the province. Of the 14 vaccination centres, nine have been established in Karachi, including two each in the South, East and Central districts, and one each in the Korangi, Malir and West districts.
The other districts where the vaccination centres have been set up include Sukkur, Larkana, Mirpurkhas, Nawabshah and Hyderabad. Trained staff have been deployed at these centres equipped with all the necessary equipment and appliances, including refrigerators.
The Sindh government has already earmarked funds to the tune of Rs1.5 billion for the vaccine procurement and is in contact with Chinese, British and Russian firms to buy as many doses of Covid-19 jabs as possible.
The first batch of the vaccine is likely to reach Karachi on February 1, while the first phase of vaccination that will see jabs injected into healthcare workers’ arms will begin in the first week of the month.
More than 100 million Covid-19 cases have now been recorded worldwide. The United States, which passed 25 million confirmed cases last weekend, remains the country with the largest outbreak — and the largest death toll of over 420,000.
