PESHAWAR: The health department is facing problems in achieving Covid-19 vaccination target owing to lack of identity cards and Form-B with people in the districts of Mohmand, Khyber and rural areas of Peshawar.

“More than 80 per cent women in Mohmand district don’t have identity cards and Form-B, required by 12 to 18-year-old people to get immunised as per policy of National Command and Operation Centre (NCOC),” officials said.

They said that the concern had been discussed at the NCOC meeting and the province had requested to allow manual vaccination in the areas and put in place proper mechanism later.

Officials said that about 20,000 identity cards had been blocked by National Database and Registration Authority in Mohmand and the people couldn’t be inoculated because they required a message to get jabs at the government-run centres.

People visiting centres without CNIC or Form-B cited as main reason

In Peshawar, the worst-hit district by coronavirus with 2,760 deaths of the total 5,748 province-wide from virus so far, people have been left out of immunisation for not possessing identity cards while some faced blockade.

“These issues are of vital significance because our teams are in the field for vaccination,” said officials.

They said that about 25,000 Afghan nationals also failed to get immunised for not having proof of registration. They added that cases of non-availability of identity cards with people were also reported elsewhere in the province.

In Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, authorities have so far administered the first dose of coronavirus vaccine to 10.4 million people (42.2 per cent) and second dose to 6.1 million people (24.7 per cent).

“These issues would be resolved soon because the entire focus is on vaccination after decline in infection rate,” said officials. The province reported three fatalities, all from Peshawar and 106 more infections on Sunday. They said that positivity in Peshawar was below 2 per cent after a continuous decline in temperature over the past one week.

As health department report said that total positive cases of the virus in the province were 178,074 while 170,720 patients (94 per cent) including 284 recorded during the last 24 hours had recovered from the infectious ailment. A total of 9.174 suspected patients were tested, it said. It added that the number of active patients was 1,606 in the province.

Meanwhile, the administration has identified 20 hotspots for dengue fever that reported 40 per cent of the overall patients tested positive for the vector-borne ailment in Peshawar. Cases would further go down after October 31, officials said.

Peshawar Commissioner Riaz Khan Mehsud said that statistics showed that dengue cases slumped due to the weather. “Peshawar has ideal temperature for dengue and with onset of winter, it will disappear. The important part is prevention,” he said.

The official said that Saraband, Achini and Sufaid Dheri villages were the worst-hit areas. “We are working with locally elected representatives to carry out spray and test suspected people on the spot and refer patients with complications to the medical teaching institutions. So far, eight persons have died of dengue virus in the province,” he said.

He said that Peshawar was among the three districts showing better performance at the national level with regard to Covid-19 vaccination. “Our vaccination rate in Charsadda and Nowshera has also been appreciated,” he said.

Published in Dawn, November 1st, 2021