World News | Top Pakistan Health Official Doesn't Foresee India Scenario
Get latest articles and stories on World at LatestLY. Pakistan's top health official said on Monday the COVID-19 variant that devastated neighbouring India, causing record infections and deaths, has not yet been found in Pakistan.
Islamabad, May 24 (AP) Pakistan's top health official said on Monday the COVID-19 variant that devastated neighbouring India, causing record infections and deaths, has not yet been found in Pakistan.
Faisal Sultan said Pakistan was still in the middle of a third wave of infections that began earlier this year, flooding hospitals with COVID patients. But he said he hoped the tide of new cases would subside in the coming weeks.
"I don't foresee an India-like situation in Pakistan," he told The Associated Press.
Sultan said Pakistan avoided a similar scenario to India because thousands of beds were added to hospitals and the production of oxygen was increased as part of a contingency plan.
However, Sultan said that “we are not out of the woods yet" and people should get vaccinated if they want to return to a normal life.
His comments came hours after Pakistan reported one of the lowest single-day death tolls from COVID-19 in recent months, with 57 fatalities.
Pakistan has registered about 903,600 cases and 20,308 confirmed deaths since the pandemic began in early 2020.
Sultan said Pakistan would try to vaccinate a third of the country's population by the end of this year. “Pakistan is offering free vaccinations to all, there is no discrimination between rich and poor," Sultan said.
The government offers Pakistanis the Chinese-made Sinovac, Sinopharm and CanSino vaccines as well as AstraZeneca doses.
Sultan said the Pakistani government has so far vaccinated more than 5 million people, compared to only 35,000 who were vaccinated with doses imported commercially.
He said Pakistan after months of wait received its first supply of COVID-19 vaccines through the UN-backed COVAX initiative, over 1.2 million doses of the Oxford-AstraZeneca vaccine, earlier this month. However, he said Pakistan is relying on vaccines purchased from China and enough funds were available for such purchases. (AP)
(The above story is verified and authored by Press Trust of India (PTI) staff. PTI, India’s premier news agency, employs more than 400 journalists and 500 stringers to cover almost every district and small town in India.. The views appearing in the above post do not reflect the opinions of LatestLY)