ISLAMABAD - Pakistan administered a record 1.5 million doses of Covid-19 vaccines on Tuesday, said Asad Umar, head of the National Command and Operation Centre (NCOC) on Wednesday.

Head of the nerve centre of the country’s coronavirus response said in a twitter message that a total of 1,590,309 doses were administered in the country on August 31 — the highest ever in a day as authorities continued to ramp up efforts to deal with the fourth wave of the contagion. Of these doses, over one million jabs were given to individuals receiving the first shot of the vaccine and the remaining, adding up to a bit more than 0.5m, were administered to those getting their second shot.

Umar shared the same on his Twitter, saying that single day vaccinations had crossed the 1.5m mark for the first time in Pakistan. “Yesterday (August 31), 1.59 million vaccinations were carried out. Both first dose and second dose vaccinations yesterday were the highest ever with 1 million 71 thousand and 519 thousand respectively,” he added.

100 more deaths reported with 3559 positive cases

In another tweet, he said the government had set a target of administering the first dose to 40 percent of the population aged 18 and above in 24 large cities by the end of August, and it had been achieved in 20 main cities. “Only cities to miss the target were Hyderabad, Mardan, Nowshera and Quetta,” he added. Umar said 35 percent of the adult population in Pakistan had received at least the first vaccine dose. Giving a province-wise breakup of this percentage in a tweet, he said 69 percent of the adult population in Islamabad had been administered the first dose, 51 percent in Azad Kashmir, 39 percent in Gilgit-Baltistan, 37 percent in Punjab, 35 percent in Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa, 32 percent in Sindh and 12 percent in Balochistan. 

In another tweet, Umar said vaccination targets have been set for 24 large cities by the end September. “Partial vaccination 60 percent and full vaccination 40 percent of eligible population. These are tough targets, especially for full vaccination but achievable with a focused effort and high quality execution inshaAllah,” he added. The NCOC had made it mandatory for them to take the first dose of Covid-19 vaccine by Aug 31 and the second jab by September 30.

The NCOC had announced that full vaccination by October 15 would be compulsory to use public transport facilities, visitors at shopping malls, hotels, restaurants and weddings would have to get the first dose by August 31 and second jab by September 30 to enter premises.  Students aged 17 and above should get their first dose by September 15 and second dose by October 15 and in case of non-compliance, they would not be allowed to enter educational institutions. As these restrictions go into effect, Pakistan reported more than 100 Covid-19 deaths for the second straight day on Wednesday. The country recorded 101 fatalities during the last 24 hours.  On August 30, the country had reported 118 deaths from coronavirus. According to the NCOC, 53,637 tests were conducted during the last 24 hours and 3,559 came back positive.  The total number of cases has risen to 1,163,688 and the death toll is 25,889.