Faisal urges citizens to strictly follow COVID-19 SOPs

F.P. Report

ISLAMABAD: Special Assistant to Prime Minister on National Health Services, Regulations, and Coordination Dr. Faisal Sultan on Tuesday urged the citizens to strictly follow COVID-19 Standard Operating Procedures (SOPs) to prevent the disease in the wake of a sudden increase in the number of infections in the country.

In a media briefing after a meeting of the National Command and Operation Center (NCOC), Dr. Faisal said that that this disease expansion had caused a burden on the country’s health system as Covid cases were jumping up for the past few weeks.

He said that keeping in view the disease risk certain restrictions were imposed focusing on high-risk sectors with mass gathering. He said that this time is not of any complacency rather strict compliance of SOPs.

Dr. Faisal said “COVID-19 is a deadly virus but we can control it just as we controlled it by following the SOPs during the previous waves. We can save precious lives including those of our near and dear ones by taking preventive measures.”

He said that the COVID-19 vaccine is very effective to protect citizens from medical complications from many virus variants. “Keeping in view the detection of new COVID-19 variants in Pakistan and raising questions on the effectiveness of vaccine process, I advise country people to must go for vaccination against the virus to avoid facing more complications and hospitalization.”

He dispelled this impression that the Sinopharm vaccine is no more available in Pakistan and made it clear that it will be available in the future also in the country.
He assured to ensure the use of Sinopharm’s second dose to those who had received its first dose and added that the priority will always be to administer both doses of the same vaccine.

He rejected some media reports on the side effects of the AstraZeneca vaccine, terming them misinformation. He added the vaccine is the same being used in many European countries.

He clarified that there were very few side effects of the AstraZeneca vaccine and cases of clotting due to it was a rare occurrence. He said that in order to further reduce the chances of clotting from the vaccine, it would be administered only to persons above the age of 40.

He said that the number of cases of vaccine side effects reported was just 4,329 against 3.8 million doses administered so far in the country. He added all of these side effects were mild while 90 percent of the cases pertained to pain at the site of injection and fever.

He said six of the cases, which seemed serious, have been investigated and all were found to be accidental and not caused by Covid-19 vaccines.