ISLAMABAD:
The National Command and Control Centre (NCOC) on Wednesday unveiled a comprehensive plan to administer the vaccine for the Covid-19 across the country to curb the pandemic’s spread.
The plan has been adopted after taking all the provinces and other stakeholders onboard, a meeting of NCOC held today in Islamabad in this regard was apprised. It added that the strategy has been evolved in light of the established international regulations and health guidelines.
The session was chaired by Federal Minister for Planning, Development, and Special Initiatives Asad Umar, accompanied by National Coordinator NCOC Lieutenant General Hamood-uz-Zaman Khan and Federal Minister for Education Shafqat Mehmood.
The provincial health minister of Sindh and chief secretaries of all federating units joined the meeting via video link.
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The purpose of the strategy is to administer the vaccines through a coordinated system in a safe and healthy environment. In this regard, it said, National Immunisation Managment System (NIMS) will be run by the National Vaccine Administration and Coordination Cell (NVACC).
In additition to Adult Vaccine Centres (AVC), the attendees were apprised, the provincial and district administrations, PVACC and DVACC respectively, and coordination cells have been established to aid in the efforts.
The meeting was informed that the NIMS is fully digital, aimed at limiting the human error, and it will impart the information relating to the AVCs and appointments for vaccinations to the masses automatically.
The forum was apprised that vaccination centres have been established across the country, while the training of staff and other arrangements have been completed to begin the inoculation.
Vaccination process
Once informed about the vaccination, the masses as well as the frontline healthcare workers will have to send an SMS to 1166 or visit the NIMS website for registration.
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Afterwards, a PIN code will be sent to the applicant while an AVC will be designated to them based on their present address. Once the vaccine is made available, the applicants will receive further details.
Prior to the vaccination, the system will authenticate the Computerised National Identity Card (CNIC) number of the applicant.
Once confirmed by the NIMS, the vaccine will be administered to the masses. The details will be viewable through a real-time dashboard of the system.
Educational institutes
The meeting was told that after consultation with all the stakeholders, it has been decided to reopen the universities as well as the primary and middle classes across the country from February 1.
Further, the educational institutions in four major cities including Karachi, Hyderabad, Lahore, Peshawar will be ensuring 50 percent strength of the students on alternative basis.
