LAHORE: The city administration has arranged 450 social mobilisers to help the government convince people to get themselves vaccinated and avert further spread of Covid-19.

The social mobilisers will accompany the teams constituted for launching the first door-to-door coronavirus vaccination drive in the city on Monday (today).

“We, with the help of various universities, government and public sector organisations, have succeeded in enrolling 450 social mobilisers who will work voluntarily. Each team will have three members -- a doctor, a worker and a mobiliser,” Lahore Deputy Commissioner Mudassir Riaz Malik told Dawn on Sunday.

“As many as 422 teams have been constituted to vaccinate 885,000 people aged 18 and above in all union councils of the Lahore metropolitan city. We are starting the drive on Monday (today),” he added.

Along with the Punjab capital, the drive is also being launched in Faisalabad, Gujranwala, Multan and Rawalpindi on the recommendations of the National Command and Operation Centre (NCOC). Forty per cent of the total population (18 and above), except Rawalpindi, will be vaccinated till Aug 14. However, Rawalpindi’s 70 per cent of the total population (18 and above) will be covered in the drive, according to reports.

However, the vaccination drive may continue till Aug 22 due to a four-day vigorous polio drive beginning on Aug 2. The Lahore administration doesn’t want to delay the already scheduled polio drive.

“We will take start with 422 teams constituted to cover 40 per cent population (18 and above). But from Aug 2 to 6, there would be no door-to-door drive for Covid vaccination as these days will be utilised for administering polio drops to infants. From Aug 7, we will resume the Covid vaccination drive with full force and continue it till Aug 22. And it may continue even for more days,” the DC explained.

Mr Malik -- a supervising authority on behalf of the Punjab government to deal with Covid-related issues - said city’s 40 per cent over 18 population is around 2.7 million people, out of which, over 1.7 million people have already received at least first dose of vaccination. “However, roughly, we have to vaccinate 900,000 people or so by August in this first drive,” he said.

He said the drive had been planned by the polio teams since they have all information / data related to the number of households, age, etc. “City polio drive is launched by over 5,500 polio teams. Of these, we have taken 422 teams and deployed them to vaccinate people in 274 UCs consisting of 166 clusters.”

He said the people would be given doses of Sinopharm, Sinovac and Cansino vaccines since these work well at 2 to 8 degrees centigrade. “Pfizer or other vaccine cannot be used in the drive since these require -70 degrees centigrade temperature and we cannot make such arrangements to keep them working. However, the people seeking doses of such vaccines may visit vaccination centres already established in all parts of the city,” the DC said.

Published in Dawn, July 26th, 2021