LAHORE   -  On the direction of Punjab Chief Minister Sardar Usman Buzdar, a province-wise campaign has been launched to vaccinate around one million people daily. The drive will continue till November 12.

The chief minister was briefed about the ‘Reach Every Door (RED)’ campaign at a meeting which was attended by Health Minister Dr Yasmin Rashid, primary and secondary health secretary, DGPR and others. The participants of the meeting were informed that 18,000 field teams would go to every nook and cranny of the province to provide a free vaccination facility. “The government has also set up 14,000 new vaccination centres in different districts to facilitate the people at their doorstep.”

The CM said that the parliamentarians and social workers had been entrusted with the task to make the drive a success. “I appeal to the public to get themselves vaccinated as it is the only remedy,” he added. “Punjab has suffered a colossal loss of Rs650 billion while more than 13,000 people have died due to the corona pandemic,” the CM stated and asserted that vaccination and observance of SOPs were imperative to avoid further losses. Meanwhile, Provincial Minister for Human Rights and Minorities Affairs (HR&MA) Ejaz Alam Augustine said that the Punjab government had launched a special coronavirus door-to-door vaccination campaign called ‘Reach Every Door (RED)’ from Monday.

In a statement, the minister said that in order to meet the vaccination target, the government had launched the largest door-to-door vaccination drive from Oct 25 to Nov 12, adding that special teams of the Health Department would vaccinate around one million people on a daily basis under RED vaccination drive in all 36 districts of the province. Ejaz Alam Augustine appealed to the people to cooperate with the vaccination teams to remain safe from the pandemic.

Similarly, Provincial Minister for Industries and Commerce Mian Aslam Iqbal said that the government had launched a special campaign for vaccination of people against coronavirus.

He told the media that during the campaign, from Oct 25 to Nov 11, teams would go door to door to vaccinate people. “One million people will be vaccinated during the campaign,” he added.

The provincial minister said that people should take advantage of the opportunity and get themselves vaccinated. “Vaccination of every individual is necessary to get rid of corona and completely revive the business activities,” he added.

Likewise, Punjab Chief Secretary Kamran Ali Afzal Monday issued instructions to all deputy commissioners (DCs) to make the special corona vaccination campaign ‘Reach Every Door (RED)’ a success. Presiding over a meeting at the Civil Secretariat here, he said that the only solution to prevent coronavirus was precautions and vaccination. He directed the deputy commissioners to achieve the given targets and play their role in making the vaccination campaign a success.

The chief secretary asked the officials to enhance awareness about the utility of the corona vaccine and also seek the help of Ulema for the purpose. He said that all possible steps would be taken for protection of public health and the administrative secretaries would be assigned duties for overseeing the campaign.

Secretary Primary Health Imran Sikandar Baloch gave briefing to the meeting and said that the special campaign would continue till Nov 12, adding that a target had been set to vaccinate more than 15 million people during the drive. “For the campaign, the Primary Healthcare Department has released Rs700 million that will be spent through health councils.”

Officers of the departments concerned attended the meeting.