Production of local anti-virus vaccine begins, Pakistan’s NA told

Tariq Butt, Correspondent

With 88 more deaths and 4,000 new cases of COVID-19 infections all over Pakistan, inoculation of people aged 30 years and above started from Saturday as the National Assembly was informed that local production of the anti-coronavirus vaccine has begun.

In a tweet, Minister for Planning, Development and Special Initiatives Asad Umar, who also heads the National Command and Operation Centre (NCOC), said the forum decided to open up vaccination for 30 years and older. The messages for those who are being scheduled have gone out. So far, 1,193,441 people have been vaccinated across the country.

On the other hand, Parliamentary Secretary for National Health Services Nausheen Hamid told the National Assembly during the question hour session that the first batch of CanSino vaccine was currently being manufactured at the National Institute of Health and would be available for administration to people by the end of the current month.

Nausheen said out of the total stock of doses imported, 91 per cent were purchased by the government and the remaining 9 per cent were gifted by China.

According to official data, the total casualties caused by coronavirus stand at 20,089. Some 51,528 tests were conducted out of which results of 3,070 people came back positive.

The total number of cases has risen to 893,461, with the positivity ratio recorded at 5.95pc. Punjab reported the highest number of deaths during the last 24 hours as 64 patients succumbed to the virus. As many as 898 people were also found infected by the virus in the province.

In Khyber Pakhtunkhwa (KP), 20 fatalities were recorded and 528 cases emerged. Sindh saw 1,248 people testing positive and 15 breathing their last, Islamabad witnessed 221 new infections and one death, Balochistan, 95 cases, Azad Jammu and Kashmir, 78 new patients and two deaths while Gilgit-Baltistan reported two cases.

With the latest figure, Punjab’s caseload has risen to 332,000 and the death toll to 9,704, KP has so far reported 128,561 patients and 3,875 casualties, Balochistan, 24,318 cases and 270 deaths and Sindh, 304,571 cases and 4,869 deaths after 15 more died in the province on Friday.

Pakistan recorded 6,021 recoveries from the deadly virus in a single day, according to the government’s portal that tracks the spread of the disease in the country. As a result, the total number of recoveries has reached 810,143, with the recovery rate standing at 90.7pc.

According to the NCOC data, the maximum number of ventilators was occupied in four areas. In Multan, 70pc of the vents were in use, followed by Lahore, 52pc; Bahawalpur, 42pc and Peshawar, 38pc.

The most oxygenated beds were occupied in Multan again where the percentage stood at 55, Gujranwala, 49pc; Swabi, 47pc and Peshawar, 41pc.