Review meeting on latest situation of Covid-19 in the province held
Chitral Times Report
PESHAWAR: A meeting to review the latest situation of Covid-19 in the province was held here on Tuesday with Chief Minister Khyber Pakhtunkhwa Mahmood Khan in the chair. Provincial Minister for health Taimur Saleem Jhagra, Chief Secretary Dr Shehzad Bangash and high ups of health department attended the meeting. The forum discussed and reviewed in details the latest situation of COVID-19 in the province with special focus on Omicron Variant.
Participants of the meeting were briefed about the measures taken by the health department to deal with Omicron Variant, capacity of hospitals, progress so far made regarding covid vaccination and other related matters. The forum was informed that a total of 22 Omicron cases have been reported in the province out of them 19 cases were detected in Peshawar, however, none of them was under treatment in the hospitals. The authorities told that overall covid-19 situation in the province remained under control as positivity rate ranged between 0.3 % to 0.6 % during the last two weeks.
They further informed that at present 10 thousand tests of covid-19 on daily basis were being conducted in the province adding that sufficient capacity was available in hospitals across Khyber Pakhtunkhwa including 1785 Low flow oxygen beds, 1380 HDU beds, 339 ICU beds and 339 Ventilators for COVID patients. Briefing about the progress regarding covid-19 vaccination, it was informed that a total of 23,503,287 doses have been administered whereas 10,326,509 individuals were fully vaccinated. Similarly, around 9.1 million second doses of vaccine were administered in the province. So far, Khyber Pakhtunkhwa has managed to vaccinate 60% of its 12+ population.
It was told in the meeting that multiple steps have been taken by the health department to improve vaccination in the province adding that regular meetings with district administrations and DHOs were being conducted to review progress and district performance with regard to covid vaccination. The chief minister on the occasion has directed the quarters concerned to further expedite the pace of vaccination with special focus on the adjacent areas of provincial capital Peshawar. He also directed them to chalk out a realistic plan to achieve the cent percent targets of vaccination against covid-19 in the province.
