Vaccination cells to be established in all public healthcare centres: NCOC

The National Command and Operation Centre (NCOC) announced that vaccine administration cells would be established in all district and tehsil headquarter hospitals and regional healthcare centres as the government continues to give shape to its COVID-19 vaccine distribution plans for 2021.

Earlier this week, Federal Minister for Planning Asad Umar announced on Twitter that the Cabinet Committee meting has approved the purchase of one million coronavirus vaccines that will be provided to all front-line healthcare workers.

Similarly, Federal Minister for Science and Technology yesterday tweeted that the cabinet committee had decided to initially purchase a total of 1.2 million vaccine doses from Chinese pharmaceutical giant Sinopharm. He said that the vaccine will be provided free of cost to frontline healthcare workers in the first quarter of 2021.

“If the private sector wants to import any other internationally-approved vaccine, it can do so,” he added.

And now, we know that an NCOC session organized to discuss the national vaccine drive has agreed upon the establishment of vaccine administration cells in public hospitals and healthcare centres across Pakistan.

The session was further informed that master trainers would be imparted knowledge about the inoculation process who in turn would train healthcare workers on administering the vaccine. The training sessions for master trainers will be held in all provinces and Islamabad.

NCOC Director General Operations and Planning Major General Asif Mehmood Goraya assured the participants of the meeting that all-out efforts would be made to facilitate federating units in carrying out smooth vaccination.

In the first phase, only frontline health workers would be inoculated, and the vaccine would be administered to people above the age of 65 in the second phase, as both the groups were at a higher risk of contracting the coronavirus.

During the third phase, health workers and individuals between the ages of 60 and 64 years will be vaccinated.