PESHAWAR: The health department is stepping up Covid-19 vaccination following drop in daily cases as 13 more people have died and 379 new infections have been recorded in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa.

Except few high-risk districts, the province has been reporting below 400 cases for the past 10 days.

The department is strengthening vaccination and has planned to increase it to 70,000 from the present 37,000 at the 482 centres located in government hospitals in all districts.

“The number of vaccination centres is being increased to 900 to enable people to get vaccine in primary level health facilities. Mobile vaccination vans, currently six, in Charsadda and Peshawar are also being rolled out to cover Kohat, Lakki Marwat and others districts,” said officials.

13 more people die of coronavirus

They said that the number of cases was decreasing and lockdown plans were good. “We are testing 8,000 persons every day but shutdown measures have worked and we need to expedite vaccination.

Ultimately every target person is to get the vaccine. We have adopted every measure to boost up vaccination as it is the only protection because the virus has to stay around for few more years,” they added.

Officials said that the provincial government, on the directives of Chief Secretary Dr Kazim Niaz, was implementing expansion programme because they needed to focus on vaccination.

They said that the chief secretary led the team of province in meetings of National Command and Operation Centre where he presented their points of view and got decisions, which were being enforced by district administration in collaboration with health and other public departments.

Officials said that 19 million people above 18 years would get complete dosage of Covid-19 jabs during the next eight months. According to strategy, the line departments would be asked to nominate focal persons for their respective offices and they would ensure vaccination of their colleagues, they added.

They said that supply of vaccine from Islamabad was subject to province’s consumption.

A health department report said that the province death toll from the coronavirus was 4,073.

It has reported 132,549, cases. Of the infected persons, 123,131 have recovered from the virus including 364 recovered patients registered during the last 24 hours.

The report said that six of the coronavirus patients died in Peshawar, four in Swat, one each in Mardan, Dir Upper and Bannu. A total of 8,116 tests were conducted, it said.

At the district level, deputy commissioners drive the campaign to enhance vaccination as the province will be getting smooth supply of the vaccine only when the previous supplies are consumed.

Officials said that 909 patients were currently undergoing treatment for the infection at both public and private sector hospitals.

Published in Dawn, May 31st, 2021