Pakistan continues to see a drop in covid-19 infections, with the country’s positive rate falling below 4.42% for the fifth day in a row on Saturday.
According to the National Command and Operation Centre’s (NCOC) statistics, 73 additional individuals died as a result of the covid-19, bringing the total number of deaths to 20,680 throughout the country.
The NCOC said that 2,455 new infections had appeared in the previous 24 hours, bringing the overall number of cases to 916,239 throughout the nation.
Across the nation, the positivity rate is 4.42% percent. The number of recorded recoveries 836,702.
Sindh has recorded 315,410 cases so far, Punjab 338,377, Khyber Pakhtunkhwa 131,775 cases, Islamabad 81,007 cases, Balochistan 25,001, Azad Jammu and Kashmir19,108 cases, and Gilgit Baltistan 5,561 cases.
Coronavirus vaccination campaigns are now taking place around the country. Pakistan has extended registration for covid-19 immunization to persons aged 19 and above.
The decision was reached during a meeting of the National Command and Operation Centre (NCOC) on Wednesday, which was chaired by Minister of Planning and Development Asad Umar.
“So now registration will be open for the entire national population which is approved by health experts for covid vaccination,” Umar tweeted.
Previously, the government had decided to allow Pakistanis over the age of 18 who had obtained a work visa or were already working in another country to be vaccinated. They will be required to present their work visa or passport to vaccination staff, who will examine the documents before administering the vaccine.
Over 5,843,000 people in Pakistan have been vaccinated against the novel virus. By the end of this year, the government plans to vaccinate 70 million people against Covid-19.
The National Institute of Health (NIH) is proposing to revert to using the old name for the Chinese single-dose coronavirus vaccine it produces i.e. CanSino Bio.
At the National Institutes of Health, 120,000 doses of the Covid-19 vaccine have been prepared, with a launch ceremony scheduled for the end of May. The NIH used PakVac for the first shipment of 500 doses, although it is now contemplating using the term CanSino Bio for the remaining vaccine shipments.
“There has been a change of mind and the vaccine would be called CanSino Bio as the Chinese are sensitive about the names of their products,” an official of the NIH said.
The vaccine developed at the NIH with CanSino Biologics in China has passed internal quality assurance monitoring.
The NIH would be able to deliver three million doses each month, eliminating Pakistan’s reliance on other countries for the Covid-19 vaccine dramatically.
