Covid-19: Pakistan fully vaccinates 70mn people

The government said that it has achieved its goal of fully vaccinating 70 million people against the coronavirus in 2021, a target it had announced in May this year.

In a tweet on Friday, Minister for Planning, Development and Special Initiatives Asad Umar announced the development, saying that he is "grateful for the tireless work of the NCOC team, the federal and provincial administrations, and the health teams".

"The hard work of all these people achieved a goal that people thought was impossible," he said.

"To make this massive vaccination drive possible, the Federal Government has procured vaccines worth nearly Rs 250 billion," he added.

On May 3, Special Assistant to Prime Minister (SAPM) on Health Dr Faisal Sultan had said that the government aims to vaccinate 70 million people against the coronavirus by end of this year. At the time, the number of daily cases was higher, with citizens battling with stricter restrictions.

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

Meanwhile, in another tweet, Umar shared that Islamabad has fully vaccinated 77% of its population, Punjab (51%), Gilgit-Baltistan (46%), Azad Jammu and Kashmir (45%), Balochistan (42%), KPK (41%) and Sindh (37%).

"Of the total eligible population 46% is fully vaccinated and 63 % has received at least one dose," Umar added.

The National Command and Operation Centre (NCOC), the focal body formed after the pandemic, said that 1,599,380 doses were administered during the last 24 hours, taking the total number of doses to 156,623,021.

Pakistan has been inoculating the citizens with CanSino, Sinopharm, SinoVac, AstraZeneca, Moderna and Pfizer vaccines. In the first phase, the country administered the Covid-19 vaccine to health workers and later expanded the drive to other segments of the population.

Pakistan also decided that immunocompromised individuals between 12 and 17 years of age will also be vaccinated with the Pfizer vaccine.

Recently, with the threat of the new Omicron variant looming over Pakistan, the NCOC decided to allow booster jabs for healthcare workers, immunocompromised people and those aged over 50 years. It later approved booster jabs for people aged 30 and above.