Sindh needs to speed up its coronavirus vaccination process

As many as 51,687 people and 85,119 healthcare workers have received double doses of coronavirus vaccines in Karachi, which amounts to a total of 136,000 citizens who have been fully vaccinated in a city with a population of over 20 million. 

On the other hand, 10,855 senior citizens have received a single dose of the vaccines.

Sindh has received 562,000 doses of the Sinopharm vaccine from the Centre, according to data from the Health Department of the Sindh government. The province has received 11,000 doses of the CanSino vaccine and 80,000 doses of the SinoWeek vaccine.

The first dose of the Sinopharm vaccine has been administered to 283,233 people across the province, out of which, 149,330 citizens have received the second dose as well, the Health Department said. In Karachi, 120,978 people received the first dose of the Sinopharm vaccine and of them, 51,687 got the second one as well.

When it comes to the healthcare workers, 123,567 of them received the first dose across the province, and of them, 85,119 have received the second dose too.

Meantime, 10,855 senior citizens have got the CanSino Bio vaccines across the province.

The Sindh government has so far received 653,000 doses of different kinds of coronavirus vaccine as the vaccination process was kick-started across the country on February 2nd. The provincial government doled out 580,000 doses to different districts.

As many as 283,000 people, including 159,000 senior citizens and 123,000 healthcare workers, have received the first dose of the Sinopharm vaccine across the province, according to the statistics from the Sindh Health Department. However, the second dose of the Sinopharm vaccine could be administered to only 149,000 people, including 64,000 senior citizens and 85,000 healthcare workers.

The people who received the second dose account for less than 1% of the province's population of 47.8 million. The ratio is all the more ridiculous in Karachi where only 51,000 senior citizens could receive the second dose - a very small number for a population of over 20 million.

Different districts of the province have a total of 128,046 vaccine doses while the provincial government has storage of only 72,531 vaccine doses, including 70,000 of SinoWeek, 2,391 of Sinopharm and only 70 doses of the CanSino vaccine.