Health

Pakistan crosses 10 million anti-coronavirus vaccine doses

Islamabad, June 9 (EFE).- Health officials in Pakistan have so far administered 10 million doses of anti-coronavirus vaccines as the third wave of the virus outbreak has started ebbing in the country, a minister said on Wednesday.

However, Pakistan still has a long way to go before it reaches the target of inoculating 70 million of the 220 million people in the country by the year-end.

Asad Umar, the minister in charge of supervising anti-Covid-19 operations, told reporters that more than 7 million people had received vaccine doses in the country.

A little over two and a half million people have received the necessary second vaccination dose, he said.

The minister said health officials were vaccinating some 300,000 people daily with Sinopharm, Sinovac, and Cansino vaccines.

The country is battling vaccine hesitancy amid a common belief that the vaccination is un-Islamic.

Conspiracy theories like vaccines trigger infertility and that the women will grow mustaches and beards are also fueling the reluctance to get vaccinated.

Pakistan and Afghanistan are the only two countries in the world where polio continues to be endemic because many parents don’t want their children to get vaccinated against the crippling disease.

The country is moving out of the third wave of the coronavirus pandemic with a below 3 percent positivity rate in recent days, the lowest in four months.

In the last 24 hours, 77 people died from the virus, taking the overall fatalities to 21,453 since the pandemic began.

Official data showed that 1,118 people tested positive for the virus over the past day. The country has accumulated 936,131 confirmed cases so far.

The government began to ease restrictions imposed in March and April when the administration sought the help of the army to impose the measures like social distancing and the use of masks.

The government has allowed restaurants to use their terraces to serve the guests.

Schools in areas with a below 5 percent positivity rate have also reopened. EFE

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