PESHAWAR: Khyber Pakhtunkhwa on Friday recorded five more deaths from coronavirus, all in Peshawar district, amid the administration’s claim that 70 per cent of the local religious leaders and seminary students have been vaccinated against the virus.

A news release issued here said a delegation of ulema called on Peshawar’s deputy commissioner Khalid Mahmood and the meeting was told that the vaccination of religious teachers and students was in progress and they all would be vaccinated within a month.

The visitors led by Mufti Zafar Zaman assured the administration of their community’s cooperation regarding the success of the Covid-19 vaccination campaign.

Admin claims 70pc clerics, seminarians vaccinated

It said vaccine doses were administered to the students and teachers of seminaries in Peshawar through mobile vans.

DC Khalid Mahmood appreciated the role of religious scholars in scaling up awareness of the significance of vaccination and said inoculation was the only way to protect the people from the virus.

The ulema were praised by the district administration for advocating vaccination in Friday’s congregations.

The deputy commissioner said he was happy to see ulema from all schools of thoughts being involved in vaccination campaign and hoped that the entire population would be vaccinated very soon enabling the government to ease lockdowns.

“It is important to speed up vaccination for the return of life to normal,” he said.

Meanwhile, a health department report said the province’s overall tally of deaths from Covid-19 had reached 4,329 and cases 138,306.

According to it, 95 per cent of the infected people have recovered from the virus and 60 of them were reported during the last 24 hours.

There are 1,584 active Covid-19 patients in the province. A total of 9,399 tests were conducted by the department.

The department said all five people killed by the virus during the last 24 hours belonged to Peshawar district, which also recorded 48 new cases. Nowshera district recorded 14 new cases, Lower Dir 10 and Abbottabad seven.

Officials said with a decrease in Covid-19 deaths and cases, they had been trying to escalate vaccinations throughout the province.

They said the people should observe social distancing, clean hands and avoid crowds to disrupt the transmission of the virus.

The officials said the province would get AstraZeneca vaccines on July 7 that would be administered to Pakistanis intending to go abroad.

They said there was no shortage of other vaccines in around 700 inoculation centres functioning across the province.

Published in Dawn, July 3rd, 2021