ISLAMABAD: Inocula­tion against Covid-19 of people aged 30 years and above is set to start from Saturday (today) as the National Assembly was informed that local production of the anti-coronavirus vaccine has begun.

In a tweet, Minister for Planning, Development and Special Initiatives Asad Umar, who also heads the National Command and Operation Centre (NCOC), said: “In today’s (Friday) NCOC meeting it has been decided to open up vaccination for 30 years and older starting tomorrow. The messages for those who are being scheduled will go out today.”

So far, 1,193,441 people have been vaccinated across the country.

On the other hand, Parliamentary Secretary for National Health Services Nausheen Hamid told the lower house during the question hour session that the first batch of CanSino vaccine was currently being manufactured at the National Institute of Health and would be available for administration to people by the end of the current month.

The parliamentary secretary said out of the total stock of doses imported, 91 per cent were purchased by the government and the remaining 9pc were gifted by China.

Meanwhile, the number of fatalities from coronavirus surpassed the 20,000 mark after 102 deaths were reported on Friday.

According to official data, the total casualties stood at 20,089. During the last 24 hours, 51,528 tests were conducted out of which results of 3,070 people came back positive.

The total number of cases in the country has risen to 893,461, with the positivity ratio recorded at 5.95pc.

Punjab reported the highest number of deaths during the last 24 hours as 64 patients succumbed to the virus. As many as 898 people were also found infected by the virus in the province.

In Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, 20 fatalities were recorded and 528 cases emerged. Sindh saw 1,248 people testing positive and 15 breathing their last, Islamabad witnessed 221 new infections and one death, Balochistan, 95 cases, Azad Jammu and Kashmir, 78 new patients and two deaths while Gilgit-Baltistan reported two cases.

With the latest figure, Punjab’s caseload has risen to 332,000 and the death toll to 9,704, Khyber Pakhtunkhwa has so far reported 128,561 patients and 3,875 casualties, Balochistan, 24,318 cases and 270 deaths and Sindh, 304,571 cases and 4,869 deaths after 15 more died in the province on Friday.

Pakistan recorded 6,021 recoveries from the deadly virus in a single day, according to the government’s portal that tracks the spread of the disease in the country. As a result, the total number of recoveries has reached 810,143, with the recovery rate standing at 90.7pc.

According to the NCOC data, maximum number of ventilators was occupied in four areas. In Multan, 70pc of the vents were in use, followed by Lahore, 52pc; Bahawalpur, 42pc and Peshawar, 38pc.

The most oxygenated beds were occupied in Multan again where the percentage stood at 55, Gujranwala, 49pc; Swabi, 47pc and Peshawar, 41pc.

Around 540 patients were on ventilators elsewhere in the country except Azad Jammu and Kashmir, Gilgit-Baltistan and Balochistan.

Published in Dawn, May 22nd, 2021