Since the registration for senior citizens opened on February 15 for the coronavirus vaccine, only 180,000 people have registered themselves for inoculation.

An official of the Ministry of National Health Services (NHS) told DAWN that there are around eight million people aged 65 and above. Terming it a slow pace, the official said that people must register themselves so that they would be inoculated as soon as the vaccine would reach the Adult Vaccination Centres.

The citizens who have registered themselves will start getting vaccinated this month. Senior citizens who want to get themselves registered can send an SMS from any mobile phone with their CNIC to 1166 or visit nims.nadra.gov.pk to get registered.

On February 3, Pakistan began its vaccination drive which aims to inoculate over one million healthcare workers with the Chinese Sinopharm vaccine. So far, more than 52700 health workers have been vaccinated across Pakistan with the Chinese Sinopharm vaccine.

According to the National Command and Operation Centre, as many as 1,163 cases and 42 deaths were reported in the past 24 hours. The number of active COVID-19 cases has increased to 22184.