ABDUL RASHEED AZAD

ISLAMABAD: The government has decided to import 27.5 million doses of the coronavirus vaccine as a serious shortage of the coronavirus vaccine has surfaced in the country after people started getting themselves vaccinated.

According to the Health Ministry officials, the government will procure 23 million doses of Chinese vaccine Sinopharm, 2.5 million doses of Sinovac, and two million doses of CanSinoBio to meet the shortage.

The officials said that the authorities were also negotiating with Pfizer for procurement of vaccine for the country to vaccinate Saudi Arabia bound people.

The officials maintained that so far, the government had not managed to strike a deal with Pfizer.

The government has announced to vaccinate 70 million people by the end of December 2021 but so far has totally relied on Chinese donated vaccines or the World Health Organization (WHO)’s COVAX programme.

Pakistan, on Thursday, reported 1,119 more Covid-19 cases with a positivity ratio of three percent and 46 deaths following which the total infections in the country reported since the pandemic outbreak reached 945,184 and death tally reached to 21,874.

According to the National Command and Operation Centre (NCOC), in the past 24 hours, 2,763 people have recovered from the disease taking the national tally of recoveries to 887,095.

At present, there are a total 36,215 active Covid-19 cases countrywide.

Out of 46 Covid-19 patients that died in the past 24 hours, 40 were under treatment in the hospitals, 18 of them died on ventilators and six died at quarantines or homes, the NCOC said.

Punjab and Sindh reported the most deaths in the past 24 hours as both the provinces reported 19 Covid-19 deaths.

In past 24 hours, a total 37,196 Covid-19 tests were conducted across the country, of which 13,755 in Sindh, 7,619 in Punjab, 9,527 in the Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa (KPK), 4,419 in the Islamabad Capital Territory (ICT), 1,030 in Balochistan, 372 in Gilgit-Baltistan, and 474 in the AJK.

Nationwide ventilator occupancy has dropped below 300 mark in months as at present there are 282 ventilators occupied across country, while no Covid-affected person was on ventilator in Balochistan, Azad Jammu and Kashmir (AJK), and G-B.

Maximum ventilators were occupied in four major areas including Peshawar 18 percent, Lahore 20 percent, Bahawalpur 28 percent, and Multan 40 percent.

Maximum oxygen beds are occupied in four major areas: Gilgit 30 percent, Abbottabad 31 percent, Karachi 26 percent, and Multan 25 percent.

Out of a total of 945,184 cases reported in Pakistan since the pandemic outbreak, Punjab with 344,512 cases is on top followed by Sindh with 329,947 cases, the KPK with 136,474 cases, the ICT with 82,253 cases, Balochistan with 26,409, the AJK 19,844 cases, and G-B 5,745 cases.

Out of 21,874 nationwide deaths reported in the country since the Covid-19 outbreak, Punjab with 10,586 deaths is on top, where 19 deaths were reported in the past 24 hours, followed by Sindh with 5,292 deaths of which 19 were reported in the past 24 hours, KPK with 4,247 deaths of which seven died on Wednesday, ICT with 773 deaths, AJK 571 deaths of which one death was reported in the past 24 hours, Balochistan 297 deaths, and G-B 108 deaths.

A total of 13,971,689 corona tests have been conducted so far, while 639 hospitals are equipped with Covid facilities.

Some 2,746 corona patients were admitted in hospitals across the country.