Federal Minister for Planning and Development – Asad Umar has said that Pakistan is currently witnessing a third wave of novel COVID-19 coronavirus.
In a statement made on Dawn News on Thursday, Asad Umar noted that there is no doubt that the third wave has started and basically, the phenomena that’s driving it is the spread of the UK strain.
When inquired about increasing COVID-19 cases, federal minister apprised that spike in coronavirus cases was witnessed in districts where a large portion of the Pakistan British community lives.
National Institute of Health (NIH) has carried out genome sequencing which revealed that UK’s COVID-19 strain is in fact the most dominant variant of coronavirus in Pakistan; the British strain is known to transmit and spread at a much faster rate than other variants of the novel virus.
Pakistan has reported a total of 600,198 COVID-19 cases with 13,430 deaths so far. A total of 568,065 people have successfully recovered from the novel virus whereas 1,709 are still in critical condition.
According to NCOC statistics 2,707 COVID-19 cases were reported in the last 24 hours along with 54 casualties.
Pakistan’s COVID-19 Vaccination Drive
Pakistan launched second phase of nationwide COVID-19 vaccination drive for the people aged 60 and above on Wednesday earlier this week.
As per details, the second nationwide inoculation campaign will focus on people who are aged 60 or above, as they’re more vulnerable to the novel virus.
Ministry of National Health Services, Regulations and Coordination has said that senior citizens who have registered themselves for vaccination, will receive instructions via SMS with oldest being priority.
Most senior citizens will be the first ones to receive COVID-19 vaccine, said SAPM on Health Dr Faisal Sultan.
People above the age of 60 can get themselves registered via sending a text message at 1166 or can visit National Immunization Management System (NIMS) website.
The development comes as earlier Drug Regulatory Authority of Pakistan (DRAP) had approved the use of China’s Sinopharm COVID-19 vaccine for people above the age of 60 years in the country.
It is pertinent to know that Pakistan launched its first nationwide COVID-19 vaccination process on February 3rd after receiving 500,000 COVID-19 vaccine doses from China’s Sinopharm on February 1st
The COVID-19 vaccination drive was launched simultaneously in federal capital along with provincial capitals namely Islamabad, Karachi, Lahore, Quetta and Peshawar.
Meanwhile, it is to be noted that Pakistan will be receiving 10 million doses of COVID-19 vaccine under ‘COVAX’ initiative of World Health Organization (WHO). COVAX initiative will see a total of 238.2 million vaccine doses being distributed among various countries across the world.
Pakistan is also expected to receive 500,000 COVID-19 vaccine doses from China’s state-run pharmaceutical company Sinopharm.
