Pakistan picks up vaccination pace, administers highest number of Covid-19 doses in a day

As Pakistan looks to curtail the spread of coronavirus, authorities said that 849,692 doses of the vaccine were administered during the last 24 hours, the highest since the country began its immunisation drive.

On July 27, the country had administered 778,000 doses, which was then the highest. It also administered 561,000 first-doses for the first time. Minister for Planning, Development and Special Initiatives Asad Umar has said that the government aims to increase the number of daily doses to one million.

So far, 27,875,999 doses have been administered in the country. The government aims to vaccinate 70 million people against the coronavirus by end of this year.

It has also committed to spending $1.1 billion on procuring the Covid-19 vaccine to inoculate its people. Pakistan has been inoculating the citizens with CanSino, Sinopharm, SinoVac, AstraZeneca, Moderna and Pfizer vaccines.

Pakistan reports highest single-day cases in 3 months as surge in Covid-19 continues

On Monday, Pakistan received three million doses of the Moderna vaccine donated by the US via the COVAX facility.

In a statement, the United Nations International Children's Emergency Fund (UNICEF) said that with the new consignment, COVAX has delivered a total of 5.5 million doses to Pakistan.

Since May 8, a total of 8 million doses have been shipped to Pakistan including 2.5m doses of AstraZeneca, 100,000 doses of Pfizer and 5.5m doses of Moderna Covid-19 vaccines, the press release said.

Pakistan intends to vaccinate 70 million people against COVID-19 before end of this year

Although Pakistan has picked up its pace of vaccination, it has been witnessing a surge in its Covid-19 cases. During the last 24 hours, Pakistan reported its highest number of daily cases since April 30 after 4,497 people tested positive for the deadly coronavirus.

So far, 1,020,324 cases have been confirmed in the country since the outbreak of the pandemic last year. The national coronavirus positivity ratio was recorded above 7% for the second consecutive day. The positivity ratio now stands at 7.53%.

The virus also claimed 76 more lives in the last 24 hours, the highest number of fatalities recorded since June 9. The death toll has increased to 23,209.

Meanwhile, 1,612 people also recovered from Covid-19, taking the total number to 937,354.