Month-long Covid vaccination drive begins today in KP as cases increase.

PESHAWAR -- The health department is launching a month-long special Covid-19 vaccination campaign to scale up immunity of people as cases have been on the rise for the last one week.

Khyber Pakhtunkhwa has the lowest Covid-19 vaccination rate among all the provinces. National Command and Operation Centre (NCOC) has asked the province to achieve at least 80 per cent vaccination target.

On Sunday, the province recorded 81 coronavirus cases and one death, making the total incidences 220,946 and fatalities 6,329 since onset of the pandemic, according to a health department report.

A 100-year-old person succumbed to the virus in Abbottabad, as the government extended health emergency for another three months to be able to cope with the situation in case of further increase in the number of patients.

Officials said that extension of emergency was important to stay prepared and procure medicines, masks and kits.

Govt extends health emergency for three months

'Though procurement is conducted through Khyber Pakhtunkhwa Public Procurement Authority's rules and open bidding, we never know when cases increase to the extent to exhaust routine supply chain and we have to buy vital items through quotation,' they added.

They said that the province was launching 30-day special Covid-19 vaccination campaign that would continue July 25 to August 25.

In this regard, a detailed meeting with all the district health officers (DHOs) has already taken place on Monday last, followed by a meeting chaired by Chief Secretary Dr Shahzad Khan Bangash in which campaign timelines and modalities were discussed.

Officials said that it would be a four weeks campaign, six days a week, wherein targets were fixed for districts based on NCOC data. They said that data of NCOC was based on census 2017.

'Our full vaccination as a province is 61 per cent, the lowest among all federating units, hence the aim is to fully vaccinate 80 per cent population as assigned by NCOC,' said officials.

The DHOs have also been directed to prepare their micro plans for achieving the...