LAHORE: The Punjab government is facing multiple issues like a slow pace of vaccination and lack of proper screening of passengers at the airports in the wake of looming threats of the fourth wave of the Covid-19.

Punjab Health Services Director General Haroon Jahangir directed the district health authorities to focus on the business sector to ward off the fourth wave of the coronavirus.

Saying that the government had ensured uninterrupted supply of Covid vaccine to all districts, he expressed concern that a number of districts were far behind their daily vaccination targets of the first dose.

“Your daily target is already set in consensus with the divisional commissioners concerned,” Mr Haroon said and warned that in absence of vaccination, Punjab (with approximately 50pc population of Pakistan) was at the risk of a rapidly approaching possibility of fourth wave of the virus. He recommended vaccination of all private sector employees, including shop owners and those working in markets, hotels/restaurants/dhabbas, bus stands and railway stations.

The DG health stressed intensive mass communication campaigns in the districts, including announcements/banners/boards with involvement of local leaders.

On the other hand, as per the official data, Punjab is far behind the target assigned by the National Command Operation Centre (NCOC) to vaccinate 12m people of 18 years of age or above by June 30.

So far, the Punjab government has inoculated 8.6m eligible people of the province against the Covid-19.

According to the Friday’s update, Punjab has reported the highest number (206) of new positive cases of the virus during last 24 hours. It is said to be the highest number of a day during last one week, showing the virus was spreading gradually in the province.

An official, privy to the development, said the emergence of Indian Delta variant in Rawalpindi had exposed the mismanagement at the international airports where the Covid-infected people were arriving from abroad, creating a potential danger of transmission to the local population. He said the reporting of Delta cases showed that the health facilities/counters manned at the airports were not properly screening the international passengers.

“The Punjab health authorities were shifting responsibilities to the federal government for not ensuring Covid standard operating procedures (SOPs) at the international airports,” the official added.

He lamented that the matter was yet to be investigated as to how the virus reached Rawalpindi and who was responsible for this gross negligence.

The Delta variant caused widespread deaths in India, the official said and added that the local authorities were not learning any lesson from the Covid destruction in the neighbouring country.

The Primary and Secondary Healthcare Department also faced another major issue when the Provincial Public Health Reference Laboratory (PPHRL) head Andleeb Hanif suddenly moved abroad for a job.

The official source said she had not joined the duty for the last one month or so.

He said Ms Andleeb had not informed the health authorities about her absence from duty, prompting the department to serve a show-cause notice (a copy available with Dawn)on her, asking her explain her position.

The department warned her of action for not responding to the cause notice.

The health department appointed molecular biologist Dr Husnain Javaid as the new head of the PPHRL.

Published in Dawn, July 10th, 2021