PESHAWAR: Health department has decided to stop paying honorarium to vaccinators in those districts where less than 70 per cent target people have been immunised against Covid-19.

A meeting held here on Wednesday with Health Minister Taimur Salim Jhagra also expressed concerns over the low vaccination rate and less utilisation of some vaccines nearing expiry.

The health department has sent a letter to the director-general federal directorate on immunisation, Islamabad that Khyber Pakhtunkhwa had taken strict decisions to increase vaccination against Covid-19.

The letter entitled Covid-19 vaccination campaign, February 2022, noted that provincial government was seriously concerned and dissatisfied over low immunisation coverage against the pandemic.

It said that under-utilisation of short expiry Sputnik vaccines was also a matter of concern due to which a zoom meeting was held wherein district health officers (DHOs) from the poor-performing districts were instructed to scale up the pace of immunisation.

Meeting concerned over less utilisation of vaccines nearing expiry

The letter said that government decided to stop payment to staffers involved in vaccination through direct disbursement method (DDM) to ensure that they take more interest and more people receive Covid-19 shots.

It said that DDMs cards were linked with performance of the districts. The districts that don’t meet their targets in February round will not receive the money. DDM cards will be issued only when the relevant districts achieve their targets in the second round of the campaign to be conducted in March 2022.

The letter said that strict disciplinary actions would be taken against those DHOs, who were unable to meet their vaccination targets.

The meeting, also attended by Health Secretary Mohammad Tahir Orakzai and Director General Health Dr Niaz Mohammad, discussed the causes for snail-paced vaccination.

“The letter has been written in response to the federal government’s directives to speed up vaccination,” officials told this scribe.

They said that the DHOs cited reasons of slow immunisation and ways and means to bring improvement in the process as it was the only way to interrupt transmission of coronavirus in the province.

They said that so far, 19 million persons above 12 years received the first dose of Covid-19 vaccine and 12.2 million got the second shot in the province. They added that the overall vaccination rate was 50 per cent.

Officials said that 16 districts including Kolai Palas (16.6pc), South Waziristan (19.15pc), Kohistan Upper (26.23pc), Kohistan Lower (34.28pc), North Waziristan (51.04pc), Kurram Lower (52.28pc), Bannu (53.19pc) and Shangla (54.65pc) had below 70pc vaccination rate.

They said that 20 districts including Haripur (90.29pc), Charsadda (90.22pc), Chitral Upper (87.12pc), Swat (83.93pc) and Chitral Lower (82.73pc) were able to inoculate over 70pc population against Covid-19.

Officials said that Peshawar, which registered half of the total fatalities and infection in the province, was yet to improve vaccination as only 62pc people were jabbed in the district.

They said that reasons of low vaccination were also identical in all districts about which the government was informed. Most of the people showing reluctance against vaccination tell lie about their vaccination status and others argue that vaccine is not needed at all while some say that no medication is required when the disease hasn’t occurred.

Officials said that health department was compiling a report wherein all the people defying vaccination would be identified and action would be suggested against them. They said that on average first dose administration decreased by 42pc compared to last week while the level of second dose was declined by 32pc over the same period.

Meanwhile, Khyber Pakhtunkhwa recorded two more mortalities and 251 new cases of coronavirus.

A report of health department said that both deaths occurred in Peshawar that made the total number of Covid-19 mortalities 6,228. The total number of cases in the province is 215,588 while active patients are 9,149.

Published in Dawn, February 24th, 2022