Zubair Quteshi
The Islamabad administration is set to put a number of areas under smart lockdown as an upward trend of COID-19 cases continues to ring alarm bells for the health authorities.
Positivity rate of COVID-19 cases has jumped be-yond 7 pc and if it continues the authorities fear ot might jump past 10pc.
Among the areas where smart lockdown would be imposed include G-10/4 where police have been deploued and concrete blocks brought to seal the entrance and exit points.
According to NCOC, the federal capital on Tuesday reported 414 new cases, an all time high during the current year.
With this number, the tally of COVID-19 cases jas reached 48,495. Last time the city reported 402 cases in a 24 hours on March 12. Mranwhile Vice Chancellor, University of Health Sciences (UHS) Dr Javed Akram on Tiesday said Covid-19 should be taken as an awakening call to change our priorities at national level, especially by investing more to improve our healthcare system.
Dr Javed said this while sharing his views as a key speaker at the webinar ‘Myths and Misconceptions about Covid Vaccine’ organized by the Sustainable Development Policy Institute (SDPI), as a part of its campaign ‘No one is safe until everyone is safe’ here on Tuesday.
Dr Javed Akram on the occasion presented a de-tailed account of various vaccine trials conducted in Pakistan udder several collaborated efforts including 3 clinical trials with 18000 volunteers.
He further said (Z-F 2001) which was a discovery of Chinese Academy of Sciences (CAS) is also under trial whereas the Sputnik, Russian vaccine is also in the pipeline.
Pakistan is among the 23 countries where trials have conducted. It is welcoming that our initial trials have shown good efficacy results.
He added further that many of the countries in the world are eying at getting their 75% of the population vaccinated to stop the local transmission.
How-ever, it is a big ask for the country like Pakistan with 220 million population.
While debunking various myths about the vaccination, Dr Akram said that it is untrue that vaccine change our DNA or cause cases of male Impotency.
He further said that RNA vaccine was safe for the pregnant mothers and even the Hepatitis A, B, C, AIDS, and cancer patients should be vaccinated.
In response to various questions, Dr Akram said that there is no authenticity in the fact that private sector has acquired the vaccine yet.
However, the government should allow the private sector in a limited scale to import the vaccine.
The DRAP should declare it an essential medicine and fix its price to avoid any profiteering.
He informed the participants that the government is involved in the vaccine passport with the NADRA and soon a mechanism for this will be in place.
He said that the chemotherapy patient can take the Covid-19 vaccine, but it should not be taken in the first three days after their chemotherapy.
Dr Abid Qaiyum Suleri, Executive Director, SDPI, while summing up the discussion said that as it has been the case with Polio Vaccination campaign, several misconceptions about the Covid-19 vaccination including about its side exist widely in the society.
