Pakistan among world's top 30 states in terms of vaccine doses administered: Dr Faisal Sultan.

Special Assistant to the Prime Minister on Health Dr Faisal Sultan said on Saturday that Pakistan is included among the world's top 30 countries in terms of Covid-19 vaccines administered.

In a video statement, the PM's aide said that almost eight million vaccine doses have been administered in Pakistan as of June 4. "We have administered more vaccine doses than 165 countries. We have administered more vaccine doses than countries such as Australia, Switzerland, Portugal and Belgium."

Almost 2.2 million people have been fully immunised as of June 4 while 3.7 million have received one dose of the vaccine, he said.

Sultan said that the third wave of the pandemic was slowly receding, adding that the positivity rate was also falling steadily. "The average [positivity rate] stands at less than four per cent.

"This is proof that the government's lockdown and enforcement of SOPs, along with greater vaccine uptake and administration, has had an impact on the spread of the disease."

However, Sindh was currently under pressure, he said. "As we expected, the third wave in Sindh began a bit later than it did in the rest of the federating units. The positivity ratio in Sindh has hovered between six and seven per cent."

'Can't rely solely on vaccination'

Commenting on the need to continue following precautionary measures, Sultan said: "We are grateful to all citizens for their cooperation but the fight against Covid is not over yet. We are regularly monitoring compliance across all sectors in all federating units."

He said that the National Command and Operation Centre (NCOC) was "deeply concerned" and had alerted all industries that compliance was not up to the mark.

"National compliance of SOPs stands at 46pc. This is the average across all provinces and sectors," he said. Breaking it down by sector, he said compliance stood at 40pc for transport, 40.28pc for businesses, 38pc for industries, 41pc at mosques and imambargahs, 50pc at airports, bus stands and railway stations, 42pc at public places and 70pc at hospitals.

"As of now, we have not vaccinated enough people for us to rely solely on vaccination to slow down the spread of the disease. Compliance with SOPs continues to be crucial to mitigate the spread of the virus across all regions," he emphasised.

Commenting on the 100,000 doses of the Pfizer vaccine that arrived in the country last week, he said the Drug Regulatory Authority of Pakistan (DRAP) had granted emergency use approval.

The NCOC has...