CM wants pace of vaccination expedited

PESHAWAR: Chief Minister Mahmood Khan on Tuesday directed the officials to expedite the pace of vaccination with a focus on the adjacent areas of the provincial capital.

He issued the directives while chairing a meeting to review the latest situation of Covid-19 in the province, said a handout.

Minister for Health Taimur Saleem Jhagra, Chief Secretary Shehzad Bangash and officials of the Health Department attended the meeting.

Mahmood Khan directed the officials to chalk out a realistic plan to achieve the full target of vaccination against Covid-19 in the province.

The forum discussed and reviewed in detail the latest situation of Covid-19 in the province with a special focus on the Omicron variant.

The participants were briefed about the measures taken by the Health Department to deal with Omicron variant, the capacity of hospitals, progress made so far about the Covid-19 vaccination and other related matters.

The forum was informed that a total of 22 Omicron cases had been reported in the province. Out of these 19 cases were detected in Peshawar, however, none of them was under treatment in the hospitals.

The officials said the overall Covid-19 situation in the province remained under control as the positivity rate ranged between 0.3 per cent to 0.6 percent during the last two weeks.

They said at present 10,000 tests of Covid-19 on daily basis were being conducted in the province adding that sufficient capacity was available in hospitals across Khyber Pakhtunkhwa including 1785 Low flow oxygen beds, 1380 HDU beds, 339 ICU beds and 339 Ventilators for COVID patients.

Briefing about the progress on the Covid-19 vaccination, it was informed that a total of 23,503,287 doses had been administered whereas 10,326,509 individuals were fully vaccinated.Similarly, around 9.1 million second doses of vaccine were administered in the province.

The KP has managed to vaccinate 60 per cent of its 12 plus population thus far. It was told that multiple steps had been taken by the Health Department to improve vaccination in the province, adding that regular meetings with district administrations and DHOs were being conducted to review progress and district performance with regard to the Covid-19 vaccination.