ISLAMABAD: The National Command and Operation Centre (NCOC) on Wednesday announced that 190 million Covid-19 vaccines had so far been administered in the country.

In a separate development, world leaders have launched a campaign to collect funds amounting to $16 billion that would go towards eradicating the pandemic as a global emergency in the current year.

According to the NCOC data, over two million doses were administered for the second consecutive day, taking the total number of doses of seven different vaccines given so far to 190,001,984.

On the other hand, 50 patients lost their lives to the virus and 4,253 new cases were reported in the last 24 hours. The number of active cases as of Feb 9 has reached 86,262 out of which 1,872 are admitted to various hospitals across the country.

Although the national positivity ratio was recorded at 8.2pc, nine cities registered an infection rate of over 10pc. They are Karachi, Lahore, Swabi, Peshawar, Nowshera, Mardan, Gilgit, Muzaffarabad and Mirpur.

l Global campaign launched to collect $16bn to eliminate pandemic this year l 50 people die, over 4,000 infected in single day

According to a statement issued by the World Health Organisation (WHO), world leaders on Wednesday launched a call to end the pandemic as a global emergency in 2022 by funding the ‘Access to Covid-19 Tools (ACT) Accelerator’ - a partnership of leading agencies that are providing low and middle-income countries with tests, treatments, vaccines and personal protective equipment.

“With a significant proportion of the global population still unable to get vaccinated, tested or treated, $16 billion in grant funding is urgently required from governments to fund the work of the ACT-Accelerator agencies. This investment will allow them to procure essential tools to fight Covid-19 and provide them to low- and middle-income countries,” the statement said.

“The ACT-Accelerator is calling for the support of higher income countries, at a time when vast global disparities in access to Covid-19 tools persist. Over 4.7 billion Covid-19 tests have been administered globally since the beginning of the pandemic. However, only about 22 million tests had been conducted in low-income countries, which comes to 0.4pc of the global total,” it said, adding that only 10pc of the people in low-income countries have received at least one dose.

It further said that the fund aimed to create a ‘Pandemic Vaccine Pool’ of 600 million doses, support community engagement and cover ancillary costs for donations that would contribute to the countries’ national vaccination objectives for achieving the global target of 70pc coverage by mid-2022.

Other targets include purchasing 700 million testing kits, treating 120 million patients, arranging 433 million cubic metres of oxygen, protecting 1.7 million health workers with personal protective equipment, supporting clinical trials for treatments and vaccines, addressing variants of concern and initiating the development of broadly protective coronavirus vaccines.

Meanwhile, in a statement, WHO Director General Dr Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus said: “The rapid spread of Omicron makes it even more urgent to ensure tests, treatments and vaccines are distributed equitably globally. If higher-income countries pay their fair share of the ACT-Accelerator costs, the partnership can support low- and middle-income countries to overcome low Covid-19 vaccination levels, weak testing and medicine shortages.”

Rawalpindi

Six people died of Covid-19 and 104 got infected in the district on Wednesday. However, the positivity ratio in Rawalpindi dropped further to 5.4pc while 186 patients recovered during the last 24 hours.

The deceased were identified as Abdur Rasheed, 72, from Gujar Khan, Mohammad Yousaf, 83, a resident of Gulzar-i-Quaid, Zar Nisa, 74, a resident of Allahabad Westridge, Mumtaz Hussain, 82, from Adiala Road, Mohammad Saleem, 76, a resident of Mohallah Hukamdad and Ayesha Seerat, 85, from Abu Bakar Block in Bahria Town.

There are currently 1,370 active patients in the district, with 107 admitted to hospitals and 1,263 home isolated.

Islamabad

As many as 174 new Covid-19 cases were reported in the capital with the positivity ratio traced at 3.7pc.

Officials of the capital administration said during the last 24 hours 4,621 tests were conducted. District Health Officer Islamabad Dr Zaeem Zia said a decline was seen in the number of Covid-19 cases on a single day and its positivity rate as compared to cases reported during the last couple of days.— Additional reporting by Aamir Yasin & Munawer Azeem

Published in Dawn, February 10th, 2022