ISLAMABAD: While around 600,000 doses of Covid-19 have been administered in Islamabad, health authorities on Sunday received 48,000 more doses.

Meanwhile, the weekly positivity remained at 1.01 per cent and only 31 cases were reported on Sunday.

Refuting allegations that vaccines were not available at most of the 33 centres, District Health Officer (DHO) Dr Zaeem Zia said there was ample quantity of vaccines in the city.

However, he agreed that some people were not getting the vaccine of their choice and suggested that they should go for any vaccine available because all of them were effective against the disease.

Last week, shortage of vaccines was observed at some of the vaccination centres, including at the Pakistan Institute of Medical Sciences (Pims), and people were told to go to some other centres or wait for a few days so that the pressure would be reduced.

Most of the complaints were received by overseas Pakistanis who wanted AstraZeneca as they wanted to travel in the near future.

“Some people were not getting the vaccine of their choice so we suggested them to be inoculated with any vaccine available. Moreover, on Sunday, we got 48,000 more doses and from Monday (today) there will be sufficient vaccines at all the vaccination centres across the country,” he said.

Replying to a question, Dr Zia said around 600,000 doses had been administered to people due to which the city was moving towards herd immunity and the number of cases had rapidly decreased.

“On Sunday, only 31 cases were reported and the weekly positivity remained 1.01pc. I urge the citizens to get themselves inoculated at the earliest,” he said.

On the other hand, the National Institute of Health (NIH) has stopped testing people for Covid-19 who lacked prescriptions from doctors or positive reports of their contacts.

When the positivity rate in the city was over 10pc, the NIH was testing people without asking them about the prescriptions or reports of their positive relatives/contacts.

An official of the Ministry of National Health Services said the disease had now been controlled “so we have started discouraging those who are habitual of getting themselves tested without having any symptoms. We ask for a prescription or at least a positive report of a family member so that we put them in the contact tracing list,” he said.

Rawalpindi

One person died of Covid-19, 11 more people tested positive and 45 patients were discharged from hospitals in the last 24 hours.

Saleem Akhter, 56, a resident of Gujar Khan, was admitted to the Rawalpindi Institute of Urology on June 1 where he died.

In Rawalpindi district, there are 187 active patients. As many as 35 patients are in hospitals and 152 home isolated. Moreover, 887 patients are waiting for the results of their Covid-19 serology.

Total 10 patients arrived from the garrison city, including six from the cantonment, two each from Potohar Town and Rawal Town and one patient from Attock.

Six of the new patients were admitted in Holy Family Hospital, seven in Benazir Bhutto Hospital (BBH), 13 in Rawalpindi Institute of Urology (RIU), eight in Fauji Foundation Hospital (FFH) and one patient in Hearts International Hospital.

There are four patients on ventilators, 20 are on oxygen and 11 are stable.

Published in Dawn, June 21st, 2021