ISLAMABAD: According to an expert, while many countries have controlled the casualties despite being severely affected by COVID-19, Pakistan continues to report a large number of casualties. Barely 25 per cent vaccination has been done.
On the other hand, Dr Faisal Sultan, Special Assistant to the Prime Minister (SAPM) on Health, is satisfied with the country’s performance and says that the collective response through the National Command and Operation Center (NCOC) served the entire nation.
According to the NCOC data shared on Thursday, 3,012 new cases and 66 deaths were reported in a single day. The casualties have crossed the 27,000 mark since the onset of Covid-19. The number of active cases stood at 76,581, of which 5,590 patients were admitted to hospitals till September 16.
Dr Javed Akram, a member of the Scientific Task Force on Kovid-19, told dawn Although many countries, including Israel, were struggling against new forms of the coronavirus, they controlled casualties by vaccinating 70 to 80 percent of their population.
Contribute to fewer vaccination casualties, say experts
“On the other hand, hardly 25 per cent of the population in Pakistan has been fully vaccinated. So the virus is more virulent to us and the casualties are much higher. For me the positivity rate is not an accurate index of distress as it changes with increase and decrease in the number of tests,” he said.
Dr Akram, vice-chancellor of the University of Health Sciences, said that while the new version was more viral, people wanted to live their lives as they wished instead of taking precautions.
“So far around 190 mutations or variations have been observed, but the coronavirus will keep changing as there are 39,000 possible locus of mutation. Since the virus has become four to five times faster, the precautionary measures should also be increased four to five times. People should be aware that spending only 15 seconds with a COVID-19 patient can make them infected and that if one virus enters the lungs, it can multiply to a billion viruses within 22 hours.
He advised people to get themselves vaccinated at the earliest to avoid complications.
Sultan said in a seminar on Kovid-19 that Pakistan has successfully dealt with the pandemic by adopting a collective and science-based approach.
“We set up the NCOC to make collective decisions so that the response is coherent and coordinated. We linked laboratories to the government system to collect data on the disease on a daily basis. We arranged ventilators, medicines and oxygenated beds and supplied oxygen. Supplied. Ensured supply as its demand increased by 66 percent. We also took non-pharmaceutical interventions and implemented smart and targeted lockdowns. Also cash was disbursed through the Ehsaas program and then immunization centers were set up Information technology was used due to which today we can say how many doses a person has been given,” he said.
Dr Sultan said that as an infectious disease expert, he believed the national decision-makers’ approach was scientifically correct. He appealed to the people to get vaccinated at the earliest.
Meanwhile, according to the National Disaster Management Authority, 3 million doses of Sinovac and one million doses of Sinoform procured by the NDMA have reached Pakistan.
global vaccination
Meanwhile, the heads of the International Monetary Fund, the World Bank Group, the World Health Organization and the World Trade Organization met with chief executive officers (CEOs) of major vaccine manufacturing companies to discuss strategies to improve access to vaccines. According to a statement, mainly in low- and lower-middle income countries and Africa.
Members of the Global Task Force on Vaccines expressed concern that without immediate steps the world would be unlikely to achieve the goal of immunizing at least 40 percent of the population in all countries by the end of 2021 – ending the pandemic and the global economic risk. to reduce An important milestone for improvement.
Members of the task force noted that despite substantial global vaccine production, doses were not reaching low- and low-middle-income countries in sufficient quantities, resulting in a crisis of vaccine inequality.
Members of the task force encouraged countries that had contracted high quantities of vaccine doses and vaccine manufacturers to urgently accelerate the supply of the Covid-19 vaccine to Covax.
Task Force members expressed the CEO’s desire to work collectively with them to end vaccine inequality and to establish a technical collaboration with the Task Force to exchange and coordinate information on vaccine production and distribution. welcomed. welcomed their readiness to form a working group.
Members of the task force stressed that governments and vaccine manufacturers should release doses to low- and lower-middle-income countries if the 40 pc coverage limit is to be reached in all countries by the end of 2021. They note that countries with high vaccination rates collectively received more than two billion doses in advance of the amount needed to fully vaccinate their populations.
Published in Dawn, September 17, 2021
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