ISLAMABAD: The National Command & Operation Centre (NCOC) has decided to open registration for people aged 30 and above from May 16 (Sunday) to receive the Covid-19 vaccine, Minister for Planning and Development Asad Umar announced on Wednesday.
“As vaccine supply continues to improve and vaccination capacity gets enhanced in all federating units, we continue to expand the categories of those who are eligible to get vaccinated,” he said in a tweet.
As vaccine supply continues to improve and vaccination capacity gets enhanced in all Federating units, we continue to expand the categories of those who are eligible to get vaccinated. Starting sunday the 16th of May, registration will be open to all 30 years and older citizens
— Asad Umar (@Asad_Umar) May 12, 2021
His tweet comes as the coronavirus portal registered 2,869 new infections after conducting 38,616 tests in the last 24 hours, receiving back a positivity ratio of 7.42 percent. This is the first time since March 16 the portal has reported less than 3,000 infections. Meanwhile, deaths increased by 104 to 19,210.
The Ministry of National Health Services on Wednesday opened a walk-in coronavirus disease vaccination scheme for people aged 40 to 49. The NCOC had opened registration of around 12 million people in the said age group late on April 27.
The same day, it also approved walk-in vaccination facility for people over 50.
The government launched a nationwide Covid-19 vaccination drive for the general public, starting with older people, in March. The drive began with a focus on the oldest people in the community, generally over the age of 80.
Battling a third peak of the virus, the authorities began the vaccination with Chinese Sinopharm and CanSino jabs.
Private hospitals in major cities are also using the Russian Sputnik-V vaccine that has been imported by a local pharmaceutical company.
Islamabad has also approved the emergency use of Oxford-AstraZeneca and China’s CoronaVac vaccines, but both are yet to be used in the country. The government received its first shipment of AstraZeneca doses through the Covid-19 Vaccines Global Access (Covax) facility over the weekend.
The government is aiming to ramp up the immunisation campaign in the summer and expects to receive 13.2 million doses of Covid-19 vaccines by the end of June.
According to Minister of State for Health Dr Faisal Sultan, the government has so far placed orders for 30 million doses with different companies.
He had last month announced that by the end of June, the government would have a stock of 17 million vaccine jabs but stopped short of identifying the developer.
PROVINCE-WISE BREAKDOWN OF COVID-19 CASES:
Punjab remains the worst-hit province in terms of deaths from coronavirus-related complications and cases followed by Sindh and Khyber Pakhtunkhwa (KP).
Since the outbreak in February last year, 322,117 infections have been confirmed in Punjab, 294,251 in Sindh, 125,392 in KP, 78,560 in Islamabad, 23,655 in Balochistan, 18,056 in Azad Jammu and Kashmir and 5,407 in Gilgit-Baltistan.
The MoNHS has so far tested 12,310,875 samples for the contagion disease. So far, 771,692 patients have completely recovered nationwide whereas 4,707 are in critical condition.
In a related development, health authorities in Thailand said Monday they have confirmed the country’s first cases of the Indian variant of the coronavirus, in a Thai woman and her 4-year-old son who have been in state quarantine since arriving from Pakistan.
However, Asad was quick to refute the claim. It was impossible that the Thai travellers contracted the Indian variant of the coronavirus from Pakistan, he said, insisting the mutant was not found in the country.
