ISLAMABAD: After receiving his first dose of Sinopharm vaccine on Monday, Special Assistant to the Prime Minister on Health Dr Faisal Sultan urged healthcare workers and all those eligible to come forward and get themselves vaccinated.  

“I would again request healthcare workers and all those eligible to get vaccinated for your own protection, for the protection of your family, friends and all around you,” Dr Sultan said while talking to media after getting his dose.

Dispelling the impression prevailing among healthcare workers that senior officials were not being administered the Covid-19 vaccine, Dr Faisal Sultan, who was inoculated at Pakistan Institute of Medical Sciences (Pims), said he received the jab not as a special assistant but in the capacity of a doctor.

He said as per the decision of the National Command Operation Centre (NCOC) on Feb 20 that all healthcare workers were eligible for vaccination, being a licensed medical practitioner, he was eligible.

Doctors and other health workers were being administered the vaccine in government hospitals but there was a general perception in Islamabad’s Pims and Polyclinic hospitals that those in authority were not volunteering for it.

“I would lead by example by doing so,” Dr Sultan said.

He also responded to the hearsay that the vaccines had serious side effects.

“I want to make it clear that all registered vaccines have 90 per cent prevention from serious side effects, and the other basic quality of all the vaccines registered globally is that they prevent Covid-19 infection,” he said, adding that, “therefore please get yourself vaccinated and do not take any of these gossips seriously.”

He also clarified that Sinopharm vaccine was for people up to the age of 60 years only and those over 65 would be administered AstraZeneca doses.

He said Sinopharm vaccine was being administered in many countries including Hungary, Peru, Morocco, Jordan, UAE and Bahrain.

“We started vaccinating frontline workers, and in the second phase, general healthcare professionals are being inoculated,” he said, adding that “this is the category in which I fall — not as the special assistant.”    

Dr Sultan said AstraZeneca vaccine would start arriving in the first week of March, and by June there would be 17 million doses.

The PM’s aide said the country had adequate stocks of coronavirus vaccines and the frontline healthcare workers who were already registered in the system and were below 60 did not need any appointment and could receive the dose by visiting the nearest vaccination centre.

“Besides, the general healthcare workers may get themselves registered on the official website and they would get a reply through SMS,” Dr Sultan said, adding that, “first we started registration of citizens over the age of 65; yesterday we began registering citizens over the age of 60”.

Published in Dawn, February 23rd, 2021