Slow vaccination, flawed airport screening expose people to danger in Pakistan's Punjab

Slow vaccination and flawed screening at airports have exposed people in Pakistan's Punjab to the possible danger of a fourth wave of COVID-19.

According to Dawn, Punjab Health Services Director General Haroon Jahangir directed the district health authorities to focus on the business sector to ward off the fourth wave of the coronavirus.

Jahangir also expressed concern that a number of districts were far behind their daily vaccination targets of the first dose.

"Your daily target is already set in consensus with the divisional commissioners concerned," Haroon said and warned that in absence of vaccination, Punjab (with approximately 50 pc population of Pakistan) was at the risk of a rapidly approaching possibility of fourth wave of the virus.

However, citing official data, Dawn reported that Punjab is far behind the target assigned by the National Command Operation Centre (NCOC) to vaccinate 12 million people of 18 years of age or above by June 30.

So far, the Punjab government has inoculated 8.6 million eligible people of the province against the Covid-19.

The number of coronavirus patients in Punjab is the highest, with 347,793 cases reported so far. Punjab also has the highest number of total deaths, which has reached 10,815.

Meanwhile, Pakistan is continuing to report an increase in coronavirus cases, with the active number of cases crossing 36,000 on Saturday. Currently, the country's number of active cases is 36,454.

According to the National Command and Operation Centre (NCOC), 1,828 more cases of coronavirus have been reported in Pakistan in the last 24 hours, with another 35 people losing their lives to the deadly epidemic. The total number of deaths from coronavirus across the country has reached 22,555 while the total number of patients has reached 971,304.

( With inputs from ANI )