The pace of COVID vaccination in Pakistan's Punjab province is 'dead slow' as the provincial government is vaccinating 51,667 people daily on average against the 0.42 million people daily target set by the country's coronavirus-monitoring body, emboldening concerns that it will miss the inoculation target of 67 million people by December 2021.
According to Dawn, the provincial government, which started COVID-19 vaccination in the first week of March, has vaccinated only 4.2 million people out of the total population of 67 million people in Punjab, showing desperately low coverage to fight the pandemic.
The data shows that the target adults to be vaccinated in Lahore were 6.7 million but the government could vaccinate 12.3 per cent of them till June 1. More than 87 per cent are yet to be vaccinated.
The situation has not improved in other areas either as Multan has reported 6.1 per cent vaccination coverage and Faisalabad has reported 5.7 per cent against target populations of 2.8 million and 5.7 million respectively.
Dawn reported that the vulnerable adults who reported the highest COVID-19 death rate in Punjab are in the age group of 50 to 70 years. In the age group of 50 to 69, the target population for vaccination is estimated at eight million while in 60 to 69, it is 7.5 million.
The health experts had strongly recommended vaccination of a majority of the elderly people from the two groups to prevent deaths. However, contrary to the recommendations, the Punjab government allowed vaccination for all age groups, starting from 18 in Punjab, leaving most of the elderly people unvaccinated, so far.
The provincial government is vaccinating nearly 0.2m million people daily these days, almost 50 per cent less than the given target, in contrast the government's claim to establish 346 centres across the province.
It has also ignored the NCOC directions to establish call centres in all districts to improve the pace of vaccination to achieve the targets, reported Dawn.
( With inputs from ANI )
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