March 18, 2021
Prime Minister Imran Khan received a coronavirus shot on Thursday, the Prime Minister's Office said.
According to Federal Parliamentary Secretary National Health Services Nausheen Hamid, the Federal Government Hospital's staff administered the vaccine.
After receiving the jab, the prime minister appealed to the people to continue exercising precaution in view of the third wave of the pandemic.
Earlier this week, President Arif Alvi and his wife Samina Alvi had been administered the vaccine.
Pakistan started its COVID-19 vaccination drive in February after the first arrival of China-gifted vaccine doses, with frontline health workers given the priority for inoculation, while on March 10, the country started vaccination for the general public, starting with people aged 60 and above.
The country is witnessing a spike in COVID-19 cases with 3,495 reported in the last 24 hours. In this period, 61 people were reported to have died from the disease.
Pakistan has so far recorded 615,810 cases and 13,717 deaths.
According to the Director General National Health Services Rana Safdar, so far more than 800,000 people have registered for the vaccine. These include healthcare workers and those who are aged 60 or above.
Safdar said that there are 8.5 million people who are aged 65 and above in Pakistan.
He said that among those who registered, more than 500,000 people have received the shot.
The NHS director general said that of those who got the jab, about a thousand people had complained of minor side-effects such as slight pain from getting the shot in the arm, headaches and low grade fever.
About a hundred people complained of vomiting and only a single case of allergy had surfaced.
No one had been admitted to the hospital after being administered the vaccine, he said.