Islamabad, 26 March 2021: Pakistan Islamic Medical Association (PIMA) has expressed deep concern over the attitude of the Govt on a number of issues, namely, it’s giving of permission to the private sector to import Corona vaccines, it’s uncontrolled price and a slowdown in the vaccination process. PIMA has called for steps to ensure import of vaccines by the Govt sector alone, instead of the private sector, continuation of its campaign to vaccinate health workers and speeding up of the vaccination process.
In a statement, Central President PIMA Dr. Khubaib Shahid said that providing health facilities to the people was the primary responsibility of the government and that it’s supervision of import of corona vaccine was the most important need of the time. He noted that the whole process of importing and distributing vaccines at the government level was not only slow but also highly unorganized. He lay stress on the fact that Legislation was needed from day one to keep the vaccine within the purchasing power of the common man and to prevent black marketing. He regretted that an artificial scarcity had been produce but no concrete steps were taken by the government to halt the process in this regard. According to him, the vaccine price introduced in Pakistan was many times higher than the fixed price of the vaccine in the global market.
He said that the government should import vaccines directly and provide them to the people at affordable prices, but regretted it seemed that the government was not taking the whole issue seriously. According to him this was the reason why the private sector was forcing the government to make arbitrary decisions.
He pointed out that, even today, a large number of doctors and medical professionals had not been vaccinated exposing them to danger. PIMA, again, demanded that the government speed up the vaccine process because in the current situation, it could take many years for the entire population to get vaccinated. He also demanded the vaccination process be free of all pressures, political and regional affiliations and personal interests etc. He lamented that people were not taking precautions due to which the increasing number of corona patients was putting pressure on national health facilities .He pointed out that space in wards was running out, and it was high time the public showed responsibility and seriousness lest the situation gets out of control.
