ISLAMABAD: National Command and Operations Centre (NCOC) Chairman, Asad Umar, Monday announced starting corona vaccination registration for citizens aged 65 and above.

The chairman NCOC, who is also Federal Minister for Planning and Development, took to Twitter to make the announcement, adding that citizens who wanted to register for the vaccination should SMS their CNIC number to 1166 for registration.

The inoculation itself would be carried out in March, hopefully, he confirmed. Last month, the NCOC unveiled a comprehensive plan to administer the Covid-19 vaccine across the country. It said the vaccine strategy plan had been formulated by the federation in consultation with all the provinces and stakeholders.

The plan was shared after China pledged a donation of 500,000 doses of coronavirus vaccine made by the Chinese firm, Sinopharm. The country's vaccination drive began with the frontline healthcare workers being vaccinated first, in February, after the 500,000 doses of Sinopharm arrived from China.

Additionally, Pakistan has also secured 17 million indicative doses of the AstraZeneca vaccine, out of which 35-40 percent or six to 6.8 million doses will be available within the first quarter of the current year.

Meanwhile, coronavirus total cases on Monday in Pakistan jumped to 564,077 as the country detected another 1,048 new cases, and the Covid-19 death tally reached 12,333 following 26 new Covid-19 deaths.

According to the NCOC, total active Covid-19 cases in Pakistan are 25,747 and total recovered cases are 525,997 following 1,387 recoveries in the past 24 hours.

Out of 26 deaths in the past 24 hours, 25 were under treatment at various hospitals and one died at home.

During the past 24 hours, Punjab has reported the majority of coronavirus deaths followed by the KP.

During the past 24 hours, 32,019 tests were conducted across the country, including 9,252 in Sindh, 11,541 in Punjab, 6,246 in KP, 3,757 in the Islamabad Capital Territory (ICT), 390 in Balochistan, 348 in G-B, and 485 in AJK.

A total of 8,466,177 corona tests have been conducted so far, while 631 hospitals are equipped with Covid facilities.

Some 2,115 corona patients were admitted in hospitals across the country.

Across Pakistan, 260 ventilators were occupied while no Covid-affected person was on ventilator in AJK, Gilgit-Baltistan (G-B), and Balochistan, the NCOC stated.

Maximum ventilators were occupied in four major regions, Multan and Lahore with 37 percent ventilators' occupation apiece are on top followed by the ICT 30 percent, and Peshawar 26 percent.

Similarly, maximum oxygen beds are also occupied in four major areas, Gujrat with 61 percent occupation is on top, followed by Peshawar 41 percent, Multan 23 percent, and Lahore 21 percent.

Since the pandemic outbreak, Pakistan has reported 564,077 coronavirus cases including deaths, recovered and under treatment, Sindh with 253,762 cases is on top followed by Punjab with 164,268 cases, KP 69,990 cases, ICT with 42,688 cases, Balochistan 18,942 cases, AJK 9,487 cases, and G-B 4,940 cases.

Punjab with 5,051 deaths is on top followed by Sindh 4,219 deaths, KP 1,995 deaths, ICT 486 in deaths, AJK 281 deaths, Balochistan 199 deaths, and G-B 102 deaths.

Copyright Business Recorder, 2021