PESHAWAR: The health workers continued struggling to achieve Covid-19 vaccination target and collect samples from suspected patients after decline in number of cases and mortalities as three more passed away due to the virus and 117 infections were reported in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa on Monday.

A report of health department said that all three mortalities were reported in Peshawar. The province’s death toll due to the pandemic has reached 9,291 and number of cases is 217,304. There are 2,392 active patients in the province.

The department has been able to administer first dose of Covid-19 vaccine to 60.28 per cent population of the province and full dose to 57 per cent people above 12 years. The coverage of first dose among people above 18 years is 71.67 per cent and that of full dose is 55.36 per cent, according to the report.

It said that Orakzai, Haripur and Charsadda districts administered first dose of vaccine to 90 per cent population and second dose to 70 per cent people while coverage in Kolai Palas, South Waziristan, Kohistan Upper and Lower was below 35 per cent for first dose and 30 per cent for second dose of the vaccine.

Pandemic claims three more lives in Peshawar

The vaccinators told this scribe that they faced the daunting task to persuade people to get immunised, especially following decline in Covid-19 cases in the province. They said that with the downtrend, the fear factor was vanishing and people argued that there was no need for vaccination. Additionally, the issue of chronic refusals continued to haunt the vaccination, they added.

“The people, who have received first dose, are reluctant to get the second dose as they are under the misconception that pandemic is over. We reach the people but they refuse to get vaccinated,” a Peshawar-based vaccinator said.

Dr Mohammad Arif, the director of expanded programme on immunisation (EPI), told Dawn that they would start second phase of Covid-19 vaccination drive in plain districts from March 21 to April 3 to cover the target population. He said that more than 30, 000 teams would be deployed to reach the people, especially those, who had received first dose, to fully protect them against coronavirus.

“There are issues, but each of the team has the services of a social mobiliser to convince the defiant people on vaccination, using influencers in the community. Vaccines are available in abundance and are given to people by trained staff and so far no serious side effect has been recorded,” he said.

Dr Arif said that they could return to normal life only when the people got the shots to stay secure from being infected. He said that people could also visit any of the 1,116 vaccination centres established by health department in hospitals to get vaccinated.

The members of rapid repose teams also complain of hesitancy on part of people to give samples as they argue that the disease has disappeared and there is no need for testing.

“We need to take swabs from the suspected people and close contacts of the positive patients and send the same to laboratories for diagnosis,” they said.

“Khyber Pakhtunkhwa has been detecting less than 250 cases per day since April 22, mostly due to reluctance of the people to get tested for Covid-19,” vaccinators in Mardan said.

They said that collection of samples from sentinel sites in hospitals had also fallen due to decrease in number of patients while the teams working in the fields faced problems to receive samples from the target people.

They also cited drop in daily positivity as the reason for decline in sample collection and a cause of relaxation of people leading to immunisation. Infectivity rate in Peshawar remained seven per cent and in Mardan four per cent.

Published in Dawn, March 8th, 2022