Federal Minister for Planning, Development and Special Initiatives, Asad Umar has said that three more shipments of coronavirus vaccines are inbound in April.

Talking to a private news channel on Thursday, Umar, who is also head of the National Command and Operations Centre (NCOC), said that by June, Pakistan will have enough vaccines to inoculate 15 million people.

He said in Pakistan, there are more than 25 million people that are aged 50 and above. Of these, so far, 1.8 million people have registered for a vaccine. The NCOC chief urged all elderly citizens and health workers eligible for the vaccine to get themselves registered immediately.

Speaking of the number of vaccine doses utilised so far, Umar said that these are around 1.4 million in number. The planning minister said about 1,065,000 people have thus far been administered a vaccine and about 350,000 people have received their second dose.

Umar said that 640,000 healthcare workers have registered with NADRA’s National Immunisation Management System (NIMS) and so far, 392,000 of them have been administered the vaccine.

“It is not possible to simultaneously vaccinate all registered individuals,” said the minister. He said Pakistan has a limited number of trained staff and vaccination centres. “Across the world, a phased-wise approach is being taken for vaccinations,” he added. “The wealthiest of nations have been vaccinating their populations for months now and it may take them many more months,” Umar said.

Meanwhile, Punjab Minister for Health Dr Yasmin Rashid has announced that as many as 27,323 elderly people received jabs of Covid-19 vaccine on the first day of Ramazan during two shifts in the province.

Sharing the details, the health minister said that 15,130 elderly people got vaccinated in the morning shift while 12,193 received the Covid-19 jab in the night shift. “The vaccination process of people aged above 60 is going one with a speedy pace in the province,” she said adding that people aged above 70 are being administered a single-dose Covid-19 vaccine.

Dr Yasmin Rashid further said that over 136,000 health workers have received their first dose in the province followed by over 83,000 who had also received the second jab.

Similarly, she said over 390,000 elderly people have received their first vaccine dose while 90,000 have received the second jab also. “In total, over 750,000 people have been vaccinated in the province,” the health minister said. She said that so far the registration process for people aged above 50 is ongoing and as many as 20,000 are vaccinated daily in the province.