31m doses of COVID-19 vaccines to expire in August, if not administered: report

• 31 million doses of Pfizer and Moderna COVID-19 vaccines will expire this August, say experts.
• A vaccination campaign will begin on Monday to urge unvaccinated people to get immunised.
• Only nine million of the 120 million completely vaccinated individuals have received the first booster dose of COVID-19 vaccine.

KARACHI: An official of the national COVID-19 vaccination programme informed The News that a new vaccination campaign will start from Monday in an effort to convince unvaccinated or partially vaccinated individuals to receive a full immunisation since "31 million doses of Pfizer's and Moderna's COVID-19 vaccines will expire this August."

He went on to say that individuals who are completely vaccinated will be convinced to receive their first and second booster shots.

Only nine million of the 120 million completely vaccinated individuals have received the first booster dose of the COVID-19 vaccine, according to health experts, and less than 2% of individuals have received the second booster dose.

Pakistan received millions of doses of Pfizer, Moderna, and AstraZeneca vaccines, through the COVAX facility, while China donated millions of doses of vaccines, including Sinopharm, Sinovac, and Cansino. In addition, the country obtained vaccines from American, Chinese, and Russian biotechnology firms in an effort to vaccinate its 143 million eligible citizens.

Fortunately, with no death reported for several weeks, the coronavirus disease is well under control in the country as the positivity rate was only 0.25% on Friday.

Sindh is the best performing province in the country in terms of administration of COVID-19 vaccination, where 98% or more than 33 million people are fully vaccinated, followed by Islamabad, where 1.2 million people or 90% of the vaccine-eligible population is vaccinated.

In Punjab, around 86% of the eligible population is fully vaccinated, which means that over 64 million people have received both the doses of COVID-19 vaccine, said officials, adding that in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, 63% of the eligible population i.e around 14 million people, is fully vaccinated.

Around 59% population of Balochistan and 67% of Azad Kashmir is fully vaccinated against COVID-19. Gilgit-Baltistan is the worst performing in terms of administration of COVID-19 vaccination as only 53% or over half a million people of its eligible population was vaccinated.