PESHAWAR: The provincial government is reviewing the Covid-19 vaccination guidelines to allay fear among health workers about immunisation, according to officials.

The guidelines prohibit people with health conditions from vaccination. However, a renowned physician has claimed that the vaccine is safe for everyone.

“We are reviewing the Covid-10 vaccination guidelines and a clearer and detailed version will be uploaded on the website of federal health ministry soon,” Dr Faisal Sultan, special assistant to prime minister on national health services, regulations and coordination, told Dawn.

He said that it was being reviewed when he was asked if the vaccine consisted of dead virus and did not cause any harm to the people with underlying ailments or elderly then why the guidelines prohibited inoculation of people with diseases and elderly citizens.

Prof Syed Amjad Taqweem, the chief executive officer of Health Net Hospital, told Dawn that the guidelines issued by the government were incorrect as the vaccine could be administered to all the people. “It is inactivated virus. The authors of the guidelines have confused it with live attenuated virus, which isn’t dead,” he added.

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Prof Amjad, a former physician of Lady Reading Hospital, said that difference between the two was life and death of virus and it affected the life and death of human beings.

“The criterion made for vaccination is totally flawed. Inactivated is dead,” he said. He said that live attenuated gave better immunity as it was live but with risk of infection. There was no live vaccine in market at the moment but work was in progress to introduce the same in near future, he added.

As the government launched Covid-19 vaccination for frontline health workers throughout the country, many of the doctors, paramedics and nurses don’t stand eligible to get immunised against coronavirus in view of the guidelines issued by NHSR&C on January 28.

Pakistan has received 500,000 doses of Sinopharm vaccine that are being administered to the health workers. In Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, the immunisation process of a total of 30,000 workers has been started but many of them have to stay away from it because of the guidelines, which say that elderly individuals, who are more than 60 years of age, shouldn’t receive it.

The guidelines say that people on high dose steroid treatment or those undergoing chemotherapy or cancer treatment or have completed chemotherapy recently (less than three months ago) and those, who have received convalescent plasma, should not be vaccinated.

According to the guidelines, the individuals having fever at the time of coming for vaccination, and those, who have Aids or are immune-deficient as well as lactating mothers and pregnant women shouldn’t get the doses.

Prof Amjad said that all the people should be administered the vaccine as it was safe for all. “We need to safeguard our healthcare providers because they are closely involved with Covid-19 and risk infection,” he said. He added that the ‘flawed’ guidelines issued by the government were creating fear among the health workers.

“Elderly people above 60 years should be top priority as they face the highest risk of infection during the current pandemic,” he said.

Dr Faisal Sultan, who is also specialist of infectious diseases, said that the guidelines were being reviewed. “The issue is that those with steroids etc don’t mount an immune response. Safety isn’t the issue. Unfortunately, the expert committee didn’t allow for people of over 60 years. We will address this issue soon,” he said.

Published in Dawn, February 5th, 2021