A 50-year-old man tested positive for the deadly coronavirus in Pakistan on Sunday, taking the total number of the COVID-19 infections in the country to six, officials said.
Vaccinating out of turn
This writer is the former editor of The Express Tribune and can be reached @Tribunian
Some weeks back, an officer of the District Health Office (DHO) in Karachi was suspended for allegedly violating the standard operating procedures (SOPs) to facilitate the vaccination against Covid-19 of PML-N leader Mohammad Zubair’s daughter and son-in-law. It is believed that many influential people received the vaccine ahead of time by using their clout.
This incident, when it went viral on social media, was confirmed by Meeran Yousuf, media coordinator to the Sindh health and population welfare minister. She wrote on her Twitter handle that the person who facilitated this has been suspended and an inquiry will be taking place. One wonders what recommendations can be implemented from such an inquiry. Also, this cannot be the work of one official. Who else was involved, one wonders?
Medical attendants prepare to vaccinate health workers with Chinese-made Sinopharm Covid-19 vaccine at a vaccination centre in Karachi on February 3. AFP/File
An officer of the District Health Office in Karachi s East district was suspended on Sunday for allegedly violating the standard operating procedures to facilitate the vaccination against Covid-19 of PML-N leader Mohammad Zubair s daughter and son-in-law.
The Covid-19 vaccination campaign was launched in Karachi last week, and as per government guidelines, the first phase of the drive was supposed to be strictly limited to frontline healthcare workers, followed by people aged 65 years and above.
Speaking at the launch ceremony, Sindh Chief Minister Murad Ali Shah had said that Sindh had received 83,000 doses of the vaccine, all of which would be provided to frontline health workers.
Three new variants of COVID-19 have been detected in recent weeks, leading to increased vigilance across the world as officials say a variant found in the United Kingdom could be up to 70 percent more transmissible.
However, none of the variants so far has been found to be more fatal, or more likely to be able to evade vaccines or treatments.
A new variant was first reported in the United Kingdom on December 14. Named VUI-202012/01 (the first Variant Under Investigation in December 2020), it is thought to have first appeared in mid-September.
Referred to by some experts as the B117 lineage, this has rapidly become the dominant strain in cases of COVID-19 in many parts of the UK.