KARACHI:Pakistan Islamic Medical Association (PIMA) Karachi has expressed concern over slow COVID-19 vaccination drive in Pakistan and urged the authorities concerned to accelerate vaccination drive.
These view expressed by President PIMA Karachi Prof Dr Abdullah Mutaki in a press conference held at Karachi Press Club today. Prof Dr Sohail Akhter, Dr Shayan Shadmani, Dr Azizullah Khan, Dr Kashif Shazli and Dr Zeshan Ansari were also present on this occasion.
Prof Dr Abdullah Mutaki said Pakistan is passing through a heightened wave of COVID-19 with over 5000 cases reported daily and test positivity rate of over 10 per cent. The situation in some cities of Punjab and Khyber Pakhtunkhwa is worst since start of the pandemic with acute shortage of hospitals beds for sick patients. Evidence of new strains spreading faster and affecting younger people, is adding to the already huge problems.
Apart from Punjab and KP, he informed that COVID 19 cases are also increasing in Karachi since couple weeks and there is urgent needs to strictly implement on SOPs to prevent virus spread in coming months in Sindh.
He also expressed concern over slow vaccination drive in the country as overall coverage of vaccination in Pakistan is disappointingly low at below one per cent. This is lower than India (8%), Bangladesh and Sri Lanka (4%). As per government figure only 1.5 million doses out of 2.5million procured from china mainly , have been given to roughly 0.8 million in a population of 220 million.
Prof Sohail Akhter said about 70 per cent population of the country should be vaccinated, however, vaccination drive is very slow in the country. He suggested the government to increase COVID-19 vaccination centres and allow private welfare organization like Al-Khidmat to import COVID-19 vaccine to seep up vaccination drive.
Dr Azizullah Khan said four Indian companies had been manufacturing COVID-19 vaccine and Pakistan should initiative manufacturing vaccine as per country requirement. He recommended for vaccination of teachers and professors on urgent basis to reopen educational institutes.
They demanded that COVID-19 vaccination should be speeded up on priority basis, increase the available stock of effective vaccines for free supply to the population ensure, charitable organization should be allowed to import vaccine, establish more vaccination centers.