KARACHI: Minister for Health and Population Welfare, Sindh Dr Azra Pechuho, revealed that Sindh Health Department had started screening of travelers on buses and at train stations to monitor the situation and prepare for it appropriately.
She shared these updates during a press conference held at 3rd floor auditorium of Sindh Assembly building. Provincial Minister for Local Government and Information Syed Nasir Hussain Shah and Parliamentary Secretary for Health Sindh Qasim Siraj Soomro were also present on this occasion.
Pechuho announced that Pakistan People’s Party (PPP) had cancelled the Rawalpindi public gathering, scheduled for April 4, to mark the 42nd death anniversary of its founder Zulfikar Ali Bhutto and annual urs of Sufi saint Lal Shahbaz Qalandar, scheduled to take place at shrine in Sehwan Sharif on 12 April, amid the coronavirus outbreak.
She explained that within one week there had been over 27,000 positive cases in Lahore, over 9,000 in KP, almost 8,000 in Islamabad and 3307 in Sindh. Out of these, there have been 142 deaths in KP, 434 in Punjab and 30 in Sindh.
The minister stated that due to the rising positivity cases in Punjab, it was necessary to postpone the PPP rally there as well as the annual urs at Sehwan Sharif. Similarly, in order to curb the spread of the virus, the department has begun to screen travelers on buses and at train stations to monitor the situation and prepare for it appropriately. Should a traveler have a fever they will get a covid-19 test done, their districts will be notified and the screened person will be asked to isolate at home for two weeks and their family will be asked to do the same.
The reason for there being an increased rate of infection in regions other than Sindh is due to there being a higher frequency of traveling in other regions as well as there being the UK variant present in large numbers in Punjab especially. This variant of covid-19 though said to be not any more dangerous than the first, spreads much faster and therefore can infect more people rapidly and cause more casualties.
Pechuho also stated people over 50 are now allowed to get registered to receive the covid-19 vaccine. There were a total of 362,000 doses initially sent by the federal government for 181,000 people, including both doses. So far 163,808 doses have been utilized including senior citizens from the general population.
There have been 59586 second dose administered and those have primarily gone to Healthcare Workers as it is not yet time for senior citizens to receive the second dose, since this is given 21 days after the first dose. The remaining doses of the vaccine are 52111, and 20,000 doses of Sinopharm were received yesterday. The one million doses reached the federal government recently and out of this they are sending 200,000 to Sindh. 60,000 doses of Cansino has been received by Pakistan out of this 8 to 10 thousand will be received by Sindh.
Cansino is a single dose vaccine, this is available in the market and federal government has allowed for provinces to procure the vaccine independently so Sindh will be finding out the purchasing price for this vaccine in order to acquire it for the province. Sindh has allocated Rs 500 million for the procurement of this vaccine and will be using these to directly purchase from the Chinese government.
The Sindh government wishes for the largest number of people to be vaccinated against this virus however the procurement of the vaccine has been a slow process. 175 adult vaccination centers in all of Sindh, out of which Karachi has 29, Hyderabad has around 8, and around 5 to 6 in other districts.
She also requested for everyone to be mindful of the SOPs as the rate of infection is only increasing and till over 70% of the country’s population does not get vaccinated, following SOPs is the most reliable way to prevent the spread of this virus.