Sindh sets up vaccination points
Sindh has set up 14 vaccination centers, nine of which have been established in Karachi ahead of the first shipment of China’s Sinopharm vaccine expected to arrive in Pakistan by the end of February.
Vaccination centers have been set up at the Sindh Government Hospital Liaquatabad and the Sindh Government Hospital New Karachi in Karachi District Central; the Jinnah Postgraduate Medical Center and the Khaliq Dina Hall in Karachi District South, at the Aga Khan University Hospital and the Dow University of Health Sciences Ojha Campus in Karachi District East; the Sindh Government Qatar Hospital in Karachi District West; the Sindh Government Hospital Korangi No. 5 in Karachi District Korangi; and the Urban Health Centre in Thado Nalo in Karachi District Malir.
In the remainder of the province, the facility has been established at the Liaquat University Hospital in Hyderabad, the HIS Hospital in Sukkur, the Chandka Medical College Hospital in Larkana, the MCH Society in Nawabshah and the District Hospital in Mirpurkhas.
Staff at these centers have been supplied with personal protective equipment (PPE) and required equipment such as refrigerators to store the vaccine vials, and have been trained to administer the vaccine and to deal with an expected influx of people.
Teachers, students testing positive
Samples of eight teachers in various private and public schools in Lahore collected through randomized on-campus testing returned positive for the novel coronavirus disease on Tuesday, January 26. A total of 21 students and three teachers in Faisalabad’s schools tested positive through random sampling. Health authorities have sealed the infected schools as per SOP and have begun tracing contacts of the affected students and teachers.
Samples of UK returnees sent to NIH
The Punjab government has sent samples from five infected individuals recently returned from the UK to the National Institute of Health (NIH) to determine the presence of the B.1.1.7 variant after displaying symptoms associated with this new COVID-19 type. The PCR testing kits available to provincial health authorities can only determine the presence of the virus, and not the strain. So far, Pakistan has not reported any domestic transmissions of the UK coronavirus variant.