Amraiz Khan
The Punjab Health Department has decided launching a door-to-door service for coronavirus inoculation from July 26, which will continue till August 10.
According to the Primary and Secondary Health (P&SH) Department, the service will be launched in five districts including: Lahore, Multan, Gujranwala, Faisalabad, and Rawalpindi at union council level.
The health department has fixed a target to inoculate 70 percent population of Rawalpindi and 40 percent population in Lahore, Multan, Gujranwala and Faisalabad in the first stage of the campaign.
The decision was taken at a meeting jointly chaired by Punjab Minister for Health Dr Yasmin Rashid and Chief Secretary Jawad Rafique Malik on Saturday.
The senior member board of revenue, additional chief secretary (home), administrative secretaries of both the health departments, deputy commissioner Lahore, director general public relations and officers concerned attended the meeting while the commissioners and deputy commissioners of Faisalabad, Gujranwala, Multan and Rawalpindi participated through the video link.
Addressing the meeting, Dr Yasmin Rashid said that the NCOC has set a target of vaccinating 40 percent of the population over 18 years of age in Lahore, Faisalabad, Gujranwala, Multan and 70 percent of Rawalpindi population by August 14.
She directed that the number of drive-through vaccination centres in Lahore be increased to facilitate more people.
The Chief Secretary said that the vaccination targets set by the NCOC would be achieved and mobile teams would be formed for door-to-door vaccination.
He said that the citizens should continue following the precautionary measures along with vaccination.
The Chief Secretary directed the administration and the police to extend full cooperation to the teams of the health department during the special campaign.
The vaccination campaign will provide vaccination facility to people at their doorstep and will ensure better outreach to the population.
Earlier, the Punjab Health Department said that over 12.6 million people have been administered corona vaccine across the province.
In a statement, the department said that the coronavirus vaccination and SOPs awareness week has been extended to July 25.
On the other hand, the Sindh government decided to impose fresh curbs on movement, restricting business hours and restaurants operations, and closing down marriage halls and educational institutes amid a surge in Delta variant cases.
The decision was made in the provincial task force meeting for Covid-19 headed by Chief Minister Syed Murad Ali Shah.
The meeting decided to restrict business hours for shopping malls and markets between 6:00 am to 6:00 pm besides declaring Friday and Sunday as safe days. Grocery shops, bakeries, and pharmacies will be exempted from the closure.
On the other hand, the NCOC informed that total coronavirus cases, since the outbreak last February, crossed the one-million mark. During the last 24 hours, 1,425 new cases and 11 deaths were reported.
