Pakistan launches door-to-door anti-Covid vaccination campaign

Islamabad, Feb 1 (EFE).- The government of Pakistan on Tuesday launched a door-to-door immunization campaign, aiming to administer over 35 million anti-Covid vaccines, in an attempt to overcome people’s resistance towards getting inoculated.

The government campaign will dispatch more than 55,000 mobile teams to go house to house, the head of the National Command and Operation Centre against Covid-19, Asad Umar, said in a press conference in Islamabad.

“First phase of the campaign is starting from today and would last for two weeks,” Umar said.

The program aims to reach unvaccinated people and those who have received only one dose, apart from offering the option of a booster dose to those who have been fully vaccinated more than six months ago.

The Muslim-majority nation has been facing strong resistance against vaccines by a part of its population, which believes that they are anti-Islamic, apart from conspiracy theories that claim that serums lead to infertility or result in women growing facial hair.

The campaign comes in the middle of the fifth coronavirus wave in Pakistan, driven by the spread of the Omicron variant, which has had a greater impact on areas where a smaller portion of the population is vaccinated, Umar said.

So far, around 80 million people have been fully vaccinated, representing less than half of the population, while over 100 million people have received at least one dose.

“More than 2.6 million have got their booster shots,” the NCOC chief said.

Authorities are trying to convince people to get vaccinated, insisting that this is the only way to avoid restrictions that have been imposed over the past two years, and reduce the possibility of complications related to Covid.

In this regard, the prime minister’s special assistant Faisal Sultan urged the population to cooperate with the mobile vaccination teams.

“When the mobile vaccination team comes to your house, please welcome them and get yourself vaccinated,” Sultan urged people.

After five consecutive days of over 7,000 daily Covid cases, on Monday Pakistan reported 5,327 fresh infections, according to NCOC data.

This took the total number of confirmed cases past 1.4 million since the beginning of the pandemic, including 29,301 deaths. EFE

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