Covid-19 Vaccination In Pakistan.

Covid-19 pandemic has presented a number of challenges to mankind and will not end with the virus disappearing from the face of the earth. It is now widely believed that worldwide, enough people will gain immune protection from vaccination and from natural infection leading to less transmission and much less Covid-19-related hospitalizations and death, even as the virus continues to circulate, as endemic. According to Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus of World Health Organization, the acute phase of the pandemic may end by mid-2022, if about 70 percent of the world gets vaccinated, highlighting the importance of vaccine-induced immunity as the single most important factor in ending the pandemic.

However, with varying levels of interventions and unpredictable emergence of Variants of Concern (VOC) in addition to population and environment-related factors, periodic increases in cases of outbreak or epidemic, well beyond the endemic levels, are likely to occur.

Vaccines are among the most effective interventions in modern medicine and save millions of lives each year. Ever since Edward Jenner's first use of a vaccine against smallpox in 1796, the use of vaccines has become indispensable to the eradication of infectious diseases.

Vaccines work by training and preparing the body's natural defenses and the immune system to recognize and fight off the viruses and bacteria they target. After vaccination, if the body is later exposed to those disease-causing germs, the body is immediately ready to destroy them, thus preventing illness. Vaccines represent the least expensive and most simple way to protect against devastating epidemics and have played a pivotal role in combating the Covid-19 pandemic.

Currently, re-exposure and evolution of new variants are driving the pandemic. Covid-19 vaccines may not prevent infection after exposure to SARS CoV-2. The main benefits of these vaccines include the prevention of symptomatic infection and the development of serious diseases requiring hospitalization and death from Covid-19. Prevention of severe symptomatic disease indirectly leads to economic benefits as well, by preventing hospitalizations, decreasing the burden on health systems, avoiding long-term disability, and reducing absence from work.

Pakistan's Covid-19 control strategy has been lauded by international organizations including the WHO. The effective vaccination plan, tailored to local needs (like other non-pharmacological interventions) was...