Punjab Minister for Primary and Secondary Health Dr Yasmeen Rashid on Monday said that around 29 million people have been vaccinated so far across the province while 600,000 to 700,000 residents of Punjab were being jabbed themselves against the COVID-19 dose daily.
Addressing a press conference here at Rawalpindi Institute of Urology(RIU), she said that as many as 1609 cases were tested positive and 24 had been died due to this deadly virus in the province during the last 24 hours.The Minister informed that Corona affected patients were being treated at 57 public sector hospitals while the ventilators occupancy rate in the province was 72 per cent.
Giving details of the C virus positivity rate of other cities including Rawalpindi, the health minister said the positivity rate today in Rawalpindi was 13.2 per cent followed by Multan at 11.7pc, Lahore at 9.1 pc, Faisalabad at 9.1 pc while all over the province collective rate was stood at 6.63 per cent. Dr Yasmeen apprised that around 3800 patients were treated at RIU so far while at present 220 patients were admitted to various faculties of the city.
She said that the only way to control the spread of the pandemic was vaccination, adding out of the total 220 patients admitted in the Rawalpindi’s hospital,85 per cent were those who had not been vaccinated themselves.The Minister said, “if 70 per cent of the population get themselves jabbed against the virus, we shall be able to control it”.
She informed that 280,000 people had been vaccinated in Rawalpindi at their homes. Talking about the completion of RIU, the Minister expressed hope that it would become functional by June 2022. Dr Yasmeen updated that Rs 450 million have been spent on the purchase of equipment recently while installation of 30 dialysis machines, lipoatrophy machines, four modular operation theaters and a laundry plant is in the final stages at the institute. The Minister informed that seven mother and child cent-res were being set up all over Punjab including Multan, Rajanpur, Laya, Attock and Bahawalnagar while Mother and Child centre in Mianawali would start working in March 2022.
She said that the Punjab government had allocated an amount of Rs 370 billion for the improvement of the health sector in the fiscal year 2021-22 while Rs 25 billion would be provided by the federal government. Dr Yasmeen said the government was determined to provide the best healthcare facilities to the residents at their doorstep whereas every family of the province would avail of the health card facility by end of December.
