Pakistan records lowest number of Covid deaths in 8 months

Islamabad, June 23: The lowest number of deaths and cases of coronavirus infections was reported on Tuesday in Pakistan for over eight months.

According to the National Command and Operation Centre (NCOC), 27 deaths and 663 cases of Covid-19 were reported in a single day. On October 20 last year, 660 cases were reported.

The number of active cases, which had topped 90,000 in April, stood at 33,452 as of June 22, while 271 ventilators were in use across the country, the Dawn reported.

Meanwhile, several people complained of errors in vaccination data and expressed fears this might become a problem for them in future.

However, an official of the Ministry of National Health Services (NHS) claimed that over 13 million doses had been administered and only a few hundred persons faced problems regarding data entry.

He urged them to contact the vaccination centre or the helpline to get their issue resolved.

A man told Dawn that he had received the first dose of Sinovac on May 20 and waited for four weeks to get the second dose.

"As vaccine was not available across the country, I waited for a while. Later, I checked my status by sending SMS to 1166, but was shocked to see that according to it I got my second dose on June 17," he said.

Another man lodged a complaint with the Ministry of NHS that the vaccination certificate downloaded from the official website showed that he got his second shot well before the first one.

A woman said on social media that she had been administered Sinopharm, but the National Database and Registration Authority had issued a certificate stating that Sinovac had been administered to her. She called 1166 to get the mistake rectified and was asked to go to the vaccination centre, but the staff there seemed helpless.

The woman asked for guidance as she may require a booster shot in future and the vaccination certificate will show that she had received Sinovac, not Sinopharm.

An official at the National Institute of Health (NIH), who is not authorised to speak on record, said that over 13m doses had been administered to people, but a few hundred such errors were reported.

"It's an occasional error due to late data entry at vaccination centres. As far as the case of a lady, who had got certificate of Sinovac, instead of Sinopharm, both are inactivated vaccines so crossover really doesn't matter," he said.

The official suggested that people should also keep an eye on data entry as operators enter the data in front of them.

"Over the years I have seen a number of cases in which name and gender were changed on the Computerised National Identity Cards. These are human errors and will be rectified if people contact us," he said.

Spokesperson for the NHS ministry Sajid Shah said that a small number of faults had been reported due to human error.