NCOC permission not required to vaccinate children, says Sindh health official

• All the students of 9th to 12th grades, irrespective of their age, would be vaccinated at their schools and colleges. 
• We only need parental consent to vaccinate children, says Qasim Soomro.
• The Sindh health department had announced on Monday to vaccinate around 1.4 million teenagers from September 6.

KARACHI: The rift between the Sindh government and the federal authorities over the COVID-19 strategies continues as the country battles the fourth wave.

The latest dispute between them has now emerged over Sindh’s decision to vaccinate the students which the Centre says was taken without approval from the Centre.

Sindh Parliamentary Secretary on Health Qasim Soomro Tuesday said that the provincial government does not require the National Command and Operation Center’s (NCOC) permission to vaccinate its students of 9th to 12th classes against the COVID-19, The News reported.

Talking to The News, Soomro said, “We don’t need the NCOC’s authorization to vaccinate our students of 9th to 12th grades. We didn’t seek NCOC’s permission to vaccinate people without CNICs while we also vaccinated inmates of our prisons without their consent. We have to take the decision in the better interest of our people.”

All the students, studying between 9th to 12th grades, irrespective of their age, would be vaccinated at their schools and colleges by vaccinators of the provincial health department, he said, adding that they only need parental consent to vaccinate children.

Responding to a question, MPA Qasim Soomro said both Pfizer-BioNTech’s Comirnaty and Moderna’s Spikevax vaccines would be used to inoculate children and teenagers.

“We are not talking about the age group here anymore, all we are going to do is to vaccinate all the 1.4 million children and adolescents studying in 9th to 12th classes in Sindh to prevent them and their adult family members from contracting the viral infection,” he added.

The Sindh health department had announced on Monday to vaccinate around 1.4 million teenagers from September 6, 2021, for which over 2,500 teams of vaccinators would be deployed.

According to an official of the Sindh health department, the decision was taken at a meeting between Sindh Health Minister Dr Azra Pechuho and Education Minister Sardar Shah.

However, on the other hand, officials at the NCOC and National Health Services, Regulations and Coordination (NHS,R&C) reiterated that Sindh cannot take the decision unilaterally, saying the decision to vaccinate a particular age group should be unanimous and in consultation with all the provinces and federating units.

They said vaccination of teenagers (17 to 18 years) would start from Sept 01 (Today), adding that Pfizer-BioNTech’s COVID-19 mRNA vaccine and Chinese Sinopharm vaccine are likely to be used to inoculate around 800,000 teenagers of this age group.

The federal health authorities said after vaccinating an estimated 0.8 million teenagers of 17 to 18 years, we would move to inoculate those falling in the age group of 15 to 17 years.

The Pfizer BioNTech’s Comirnaty is likely to be used to vaccinate them as it has been approved for everyone over 12 years, an official of the federal health ministry told The News.

The official maintained that as China and the UAE have allowed Sinopharm vaccine for everyone over three years of age, Pakistan could also decide to use that for inoculating its teenagers and adolescents but added that the final decision is expected during the NCOC meeting.