-COVID claims 30, infects 907 more people across country in single day
By Uzma Zafar
ISLAMABAD: A vaccine consignment to Pakistan from COVID-19 Vaccines Global Access (COVAX) scheduled to be received this month, has been delayed. Agencies on Monday reported that Pakistan has been informed about the delay in the vaccine delivery.
Pakistan had to receive the vaccine consignment in the end of June but the delivery has been deferred to the beginning of the next month due to unavoidable reasons, agencies said. Pakistan will receive the third batch of vaccine in July under the GAVI/WHO COVAX vaccine initiative. The country has already received two consignments under the vaccine initiative. Pakistan received the first batch under the COVAX initiative on May 08 and the second batch on May 28, agencies said.
COVAX vaccine initiative will provide third batch of 1.238 million doses of AstraZeneca’s COVID-19 vaccine to Pakistan in July. Another batch of 1.238 million doses of AstraZeneca vaccine will be delivered to Pakistan in August. The vaccine initiative has so far provided mostly AstraZeneca Covid vaccine and limited doses of Pfizer’s vaccine.
The vaccine initiative will provide free-of-cost COVID-19 vaccines for the 20 per cent population of Pakistan and the country is expected to get an overall 45.5 million doses of vaccines. Covax is co-led by the World Health Organization (WHO), the Gavi vaccine alliance, and the Coalition for Epidemic Preparedness Innovations. COVID deaths, infections: The national tally on Monday of total active COVID-19 cases was recorded 34,020 with 907 more people tested positive for the deadly virus and 829 people recovered from the disease during the last 24 hours.
Thirty corona patients have died during past 24 hours, 28 of whom were under treatment in the hospitals and two out of the hospitals had perished in their respective quarantines or homes, according to the latest update issued by the National Command and Operation Centre (NCOC). During the past 24 hours, most of the deaths have occurred in Sindh followed by the Punjab. Out of the total 30 deaths occurred in the last 24 hours 14 of them had died who were under treatment on ventilators.
There were 2,238 Covid infected patients under treatment in critical care among four of them admitted in various Covid dedicated healthcare facilities in past 24 hours. The National Covid positivity ratio during past 24 hours was recorded 2.6 percent. It may be mentioned here that the Covid positivity ratio was the percentage of actual positive cases appearing in every 100 tests performed to identify infected individuals.
The maximum ventilators were occupied in four major areas including Islamabad 21 percent, Lahore 21 percent, Bahawalpur 26 percent and Multan 34 percent. The maximum Oxygen beds (alternate oxygen providing facility other than ventilator administered as per medical requirement of COVID patient) was also occupied in four major areas of Gilgit 45 percent, Abbottabad 23 percent, Karachi 23 percent and Muzaffarabad 26 percent. Around 283 ventilators were occupied elsewhere in the country while no COVID affected person was on ventilator in Balochistan, and Gilgit Baltistan (GB).
Some 34,754 tests were conducted across the country on Sunday, including 13,985 in Sindh, 6,299 in Punjab, 9,149 in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa (KP), 3,627 in Islamabad Capital Territory (ICT), 828 in Balochistan, 391 in GB, and 475 in AJK. Around 893,148 people have recovered from the disease so far across Pakistan making it a significant count with over 90 percent recovery ratio of the affected patients. Since the pandemic outbreak, a total of 949,175 cases were detected that also included the perished, recovered and under treatment COVID-19 patients so far, including AJK 19,967, Balochistan 26,633, GB 5,813, ICT 82,368, KP 137,075, Punjab 345,065 and Sindh 332,254.
