Senior citizens registration for vaccination
AS the government’s Covid-19 vaccination campaign for over 65-year-old citizens is set to start this week, only 180,000 senior citizens in the country have registered themselves for inoculation so far.
The government had started registration of senior citizens on Feb 15. The total population of people aged above sixty five years is around eight million.
Hence the above figure really shows a poor response to the registration. It indicates that only 2.25 percent of the total citizens have got themselves registered for the vaccination.
During the first phase also, one has seen reluctance on the part of frontline health workers to receive the vaccine.
This really shows a lack of trust or the fear of the reaction and after-effects of the vaccine in people.
There is a need to remove this misconception surrounding the vaccination before a full-fledged vaccination campaign starts for the general public.
The history of vaccination drives against different diseases in our country is not very encouraging.
This is the reason that Pakistan is amongst only two countries where polio still exists and taking toll on the life of the people.
We should not and cannot afford to allow this kind of failure in the case of Covid-19. It has become important that the federal and provincial governments launch massive awareness campaign to highlight the efficacy and safety of the vaccine.
The civil society and the religious scholars should also be made part of this campaign. In many countries, important personalities including the government heads were the first one to receive the vaccine.
Videos and pictures of the leaders receiving the vaccine were published in the media. This exercise was carried out to build trust amongst the people and clear all the rumours.
We will also suggest Prime Minister Imran Khan and his cabinet members as well as other political leaders to receive the vaccine so that the vaccination program could be carried out effectively and successfully.
There should be no complacency in making the vaccination campaign successful besides vaccine should be procured in sufficient quantity to cater to the whole population.
At the same time, the people must continue to observe the SOPs to stay safe.
