Reports of vaccine wastage have been denied by the Primary and Secondary Healthcare Department Punjab on Thursday, which maintained that only a normal level of 38,000 vaccines have been wasted due to the lack of optimal storage temperature.
The health department secretary said the numbers of doses being wasted during the vaccination process were being misreported by certain sections of the media, according to a report by Dawn.
Secretary Sarah Aslam maintained that the wastage of coronavirus vaccines had been 0.37 percent of the total supply, which she asserted was a “normal waste”.
In the statement issued by the department, she clarified that the numbers of vaccines wastage being reported were actually the total figure from the last five months of routine wastage, whose data was also shared with the National Command and Operation Control on a daily basis.
She informed that so far 8.626 million Covid-19 vaccines had been administered in the province, and its total wastage was 38,357.
She highlighted that all cold storage facilities in Punjab had “excellent arrangements” to store vaccines as per international standards, adding that vaccine temperature was routinely checked under the standard operating procedures.
She asked the people not to fall for false reports regarding the so-called wastage of vaccines.
“The Covid-19 vaccines are properly stored in our facilities and the same are administered to hundreds of thousands of people on a daily basis,” she added.
As many as 289 coronavirus patients recovered in Punjab during the last 24 hours, reported by the health department.
According to the data shared by the health department, 304,834 coronavirus patients recovered altogether so far in public sector hospitals being run under the control of Specialized and Primary & Secondary Healthcare departments across the province.
The Specialized Healthcare and Medical Education Department sources said that 6823 beds were reserved in all government owned hospitals for corona patients, out of which 6272 beds were unoccupied. Likewise, 1355 beds were reserved in government hospitals of the provincial metropolis and 1211 beds were vacant so far.
In view of the surging corona pandemic, the Specialized Healthcare Department had arranged 3099 beds in Isolation wards of all government hospitals in the province, out of which, 2957 beds were vacant.
However, 346 beds for corona patients were reserved in isolation wards set up in the government hospitals of Lahore and 325 beds were unoccupied. In addition, 3022 beds were also reserved in HDU for patients suffering from Covid-19 in all the hospitals of the Punjab government and 2724 beds were vacant while, in the hospitals situated in the provincial capital, 768 beds reserved in HDU and 691 beds were unoccupied.
The department had arranged 706 ventilators for corona patients in all hospitals of the provincial government, of which 115 ventilators were under use while 591 were unoccupied.
Around 241 ventilators were reserved in Lahore hospitals, of which 46 were occupied and 195 ventilators were vacant.
with additional input from APP
