ISLAMABAD: Minister for Planning, Development and Special Initiatives Asad Umar Monday said the government had decided to run massive Covid vaccination drive across the country to achieve the target of providing 70 million vaccines to the people.
The lockdown is no more the solution of containing COVID-19, as the vaccination has become the only way to do away with the pandemic,” Asad Umar said while briefing media after attending the meeting of National Coordination Committee (NCC) here.
The NCC meeting was presided over by Prime Minister Imran Khan and was attended by chief ministers of all the provinces.
Asad Umar informed that in today’s meeting, the NCC had endorsed the strategy of vaccination drive prepared by the National Command and Operation Center (NCOC).
“We want that maximum number of people should be administered the vaccines in June and July before the Eid-ul-Azha to avoid imposing lockdown in the county during the Eid festival.
Asad Umar said the NCOC took some difficult decisions during the last ten days of Ramzan and Eid days but they yielded positive results as the positivity ratio had come down from 10-11 percent to 4 percent.
In Sindh, however he said the pandemic was still expanding at little higher rate.
He said the COVID had not ended yet and the people should still strictly follow the SOPs issued by the government to curb the expansion of pandemic.
Umar said positive results were seen in the countries where vaccination ratio was high. In the country so far, about 5.3 million people have been vaccinated.
He said there was no issue of vaccine availability as “we have already arranged 10 million more vaccines while 10 million more would available in June and further 10 million in July, he added.
He said during previous day, some 383,000 vaccines were provided but “we want to increase the daily vaccine number by 100 percent”.
He said now the whole of nation approach was being adopted to ensure effectiveness of the vaccination drive.
The minister added that, the federal government would provide free of cost vaccine to all people including18 years and above. He said in order to make the drive successful, the government would engage different stakeholders including media, bar councils, religious scholars, Ulema, trade bodies and others to run the drive collectively.
Copyright Business Recorder, 2021
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