Will the govt resolve issues of vaccine irregularities?

A vaccination campaign against the novel coronavirus began simultaneously in all federating units of the country on 3rd February, a day after 500,000 doses of the Sinopharm COVID-19 vaccine arrived in Islamabad as a gift from the Chinese government.

The first batch of the 500,000 vaccine doses that China had announced to provide to Pakistan earlier this month brought through a special plane of the Pakistan Air Force (PAF) on 1st February.

The vaccine was developed by the Beijing Institute of Biological Products, a contributor to state-owned conglomerate Sinopharm. Last month the Corporation announced that preliminary data from last-stage trials had shown it to be 79.3 percent effective.

Pakistan has so far approved three coronavirus vaccines — the Oxford-AstraZeneca vaccine, the vaccine developed by Chinese state-owned firm China National Pharmaceutical Group (SinoPharm) and Russian-developed Sputnik V.

Officials say the authorizations will be reviewed quarterly with regard to safety, efficacy and quality. AstraZeneca’s COVID-19 vaccine had been approved for emergency use in Pakistan making it the first coronavirus vaccine to get the green light for use in the South Asian country.

The latest situation of COVID-19  

Pakistan is recording further new cases, as compared to the past few weeks, and that the increased pressure is upsetting the country’s health care system. A further 26 deaths and 1,048 new cases have been reported in Pakistan due to the coronavirus on Monday.

According to the National Command and Control Center, the total number of deaths from coronavirus in Pakistan has reached 12,333 while the total number of affected people has reached 564,077. In the country, 525,997 people have recovered from coronavirus and the number of patients undergoing treatment is 25,747.

The highest number of deaths due to coronavirus was in Punjab where 5,051 people lost their lives while 4,219 in Sindh, 1,995 in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, 486 in Islamabad, 102 in Gilgit-Baltistan, 199 in Balochistan, and In Azad Kashmir, 281 people have lost their lives.

Rate of positive cases

According to the National Command and Operations Center, the rate of positive cases of corona in Karachi is 10.68 percent. The rate of positive cases in Islamabad is 1.18 percent, in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa 5.25 percent, in Punjab 5.97 percent, and in Sindh 10.23 percent. In Azad Kashmir, the positive cases of Corona are 5.97 percent, in Balochistan 3.52 percent, and in Gilgit-Baltistan 0.56 percent.  

Vaccination strategy

Simultaneous vaccine inauguration ceremonies held in all provinces, including Gilgit Baltistan (GB) and Kashmir and were attended by the respective chief ministers and other government officials.

According to the government’s vaccination strategy, health workers were the first to receive the vaccine. In the first phase, two categories of people would be administered the vaccine – the frontline healthcare workers and people over 65 years of age.

So for more than 400,000 health workers have been vaccinated across the country in the first phase. There are seven million people in the age bracket of 60 and 65 years who will be vaccinated in the second phase along with the remaining healthcare professional, as per government plan.

In the third phase, one before the general population gets the shots people with co-morbidities (to be confirmed from earlier investigation and prescription) would be immunized.

Second phase

Federal Minister for Planning and Development Asad Umar has announced that the coronavirus vaccine registration for senior citizens has begun today. In a tweet, Asad Umar wrote that the citizens aged 65 and over can register for the coronavirus vaccine. He said that senior citizens should send their identity card number on 1166 for registration. According to him, the vaccination will begin next month.

Vaccine irregularities

Soon after the vaccine inauguration there have several wide-scale irregularities reported in the administration particularly in Sindh including administering the vaccine to non-front line healthcare workers, people over 60 years and unrelated people during the first phase.

Last week, it was reported that the daughter and son-in-law of former Sindh governor Muhammad Zubair were administrated the vaccine. It was reported many influential personalities, including the daughter and son-in-law of former Sindh governor Muhammad Zubair used their connections to receive the vaccine in the first phase.

On the other hand, the NCOC has received numerous complaints of wide-ranging irregularities in the administration of coronavirus vaccine which benefited many influential but even non-essential people.

It is essential to conduct an audit of the vaccines administered to the healthcare workers, keeps a record of every vaccine vial and wasted vaccine doses. Authorities need to identify the ambiguities in the vaccination process and take strict curative steps to stop such practices in the second and third phases.