LAHORE: The Punjab Health Department and the City District Government on Thursday jointly launched mobile vaccination units under the ‘Lahore gets vaccinated campaign’.

Punjab Health Minister Yasmin Rashid and Commissioner retired Capt Usman Younis inaugurated the units at a ceremony.

Under the campaign, 11 mobile vaccination units were started in five towns of the city in partnership with PSO and a welfare organisation HANDS. The initiative would help achieve vaccination of 40 per cent of the province’s population. In the last 24 hours, more than 63,000 citizens were vaccinated in Lahore.

The minister said the campaign was launched to achieve the vaccination targets in Punjab.

She said the coronavirus hit the entire world hard and affected the ways of life and there is a compelling evidence from the world that mass vaccination is hugely effective to control the pandemic.

She said 88pc of all the hospitalised cases were not vaccinated and 7pc of the remaining 12pc had received one dose while 5pc others had received two doses.

Ms Rashid said Covid-19 vaccine is greatly effective in preventing new infections and in stopping the worsening of disease to the critically ill category.

She said among the vaccinated people the ratio of getting critically ill was negligible while 95pc of patients in the intensive care units were unvaccinated.

She said just a few days earlier, 36 out of 37 patients on ventilators were unvaccinated and vaccination was going to be the main factor in controlling the pandemic.

Ms Rashid said the positivity ratio was usually on the higher side in Lahore, hence the focus was on mega cities.Lahore Commissioner Mr Younis urged all the people to get vaccinated for safety of their elders and children before Aug 30 and the vaccination capacity was being enhanced on a daily basis.

He said the decision on vaccination of children over 15 years of age would be announced on Sept 1 and gradually, the age bracket would be lowered, first from 18 to 17, then 17 to 16 and then 16 to 15.

He said the vaccination target at UC level was set in Lahore and social mobilisers were assigned to motivate citizens to get themselves vaccinated.

Published in Dawn, August 27th, 2021