Pakistan's vaccine count crosses 80 million

Pakistan has administered over 80 million doses of the coronavirus vaccine as the country continued to witness a decline in its daily Covid-19 cases.

The Ministry of National Health Services announced in a tweet on Wednesday that 975,361 doses were administered across the country during the last 24 hours. Out of these, 508,637 were first doses and 464,982 were second doses.

"Total doses administered till now is 80.5 million," the ministry tweeted.

Pakistan to expand vaccination drive, threshold lowered to age 12

On Tuesday, Federal Minister for Planning, Development and Special Initiatives and head of the NCOC Asad Umar announced that the forum held a meeting and decided to start vaccinating citizens aged 12 and above.

"Special drive will be run for vaccination at schools to make it easier for children to be vaccinated," he tweeted. Later, the NCOC said that the Pfizer vaccine will be administered to those who are below 18 years of age.

People aged below 18, will have to provide their B-form number for registration in the National Immunisation Management System.

The country intends to vaccinate 70 million people by the end of this year and 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.

Meanwhile, during the last 24 hours, Pakistan reported 1,560 new cases at a positivity ratio of 3.19%. The country conducted 48,836 tests on September 28. The active number of coronavirus cases decreased to 48,506, while the critical number of cases stands at 3,948.

During the last 24 hours, 52 more people died from the novel virus, taking the toll to 27,690.

Moreover, Pakistan reported 2,970 recoveries over the past 24 hours. The country has recorded a total of 1,167,189 recoveries so far, while the recovery rate is 93.9%.