10 Covid vaccination centres in Karachi to operate 24 hours from August 2

(Karachi) As part of efforts to facilitate the people in the vaccination process, the Sindh government has decided to make 10 vaccination centres in Karachi operational for 24 hours starting Monday (August 2).

According to a tweet by Parliamentary Secretary for Health Qasim Siraj Soomro, at least 10 major vaccinations centres would operate round the clock in Karachi as they have been provided with adequate health staffers and vaccines to deal with the rising number of people visiting the vaccination centres.

The facilities where round the clock vaccination services would be provided included Ojha campus of DOW University, Khaliq Dina Hall, Jinnah Postgraduate Medical Centre (JPMC), Children Hospital Karachi, New Karachi hospital, Qatar Hospital, Murad Memon Goth hospital, a government hospital in Korangi block 5 and Lyari college.

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The decision has been taken after chaos was reported at Karachi's Expo Centre where people in large numbers thronged to get Covid vaccination on Saturday. Long queues were witnessed at the Expo Centre as people rushed to get their jabs after Sindh imposed what it called a 'partial' lockdown a day ago.

CCTV footage showed a stampede-like situation as citizens in Karachi rushed to the city's biggest vaccination centre to get their jabs, now made mandatory for all people over the age of 18 in the province.

Forced to get jabs, citizens overrun Karachi's Expo Centre

In addition, a slower-than-usual vaccination process resulted in high turnaround time, resulting in massive backlog that caused further frustration among the masses that were pushed into getting the vaccines after Sindh issued multiple warnings.

The administration's slow response and inability to handle such a large number of vaccine-seeking citizens also added to the misery. Incidents of violence followed with windows of the vaccination centre being smashed as people vented their anger.

Earlier on Sunday, Minister for Planning and Special Initiatives Asad Umar announced that Pakistan has achieved a major milestone of administering five million coronavirus vaccine doses in six days.

So far, 30 million people have been inoculated in the country.

“The first crore took 113 days. The second 28 days and the 3rd only 16 days. Pace has rapidly increased. All six days this week were a record. Nine lakh 34 thousand vaccinations yesterday,” Umar tweeted.

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The government plans to inoculate 40 percent of the population in big cities by the end of August.