Govt To Ensure Universal Health Coverage For Healthier Future: Dr Faisal

Special Assistant to Prime Minister on National Health Services, Regulations and Coordination Dr Faisal Sultan on Wednesday said that the concrete steps are being taken to ensure universal health coverage for having safer and healthier future of every citizen in the country

ISLAMABAD, (UrduPoint / Pakistan Point News - 27th Jan, 2021 ) :Special Assistant to Prime Minister on National Health Services, Regulations and Coordination Dr Faisal Sultan on Wednesday said that the concrete steps are being taken to ensure universal health coverage for having safer and healthier future of every citizen in the country.

Addressing the participants of opening session of workshop for health journalists covering COVID-19 and health governance in Pakistan through video-link, Dr Faisal said that the government will make more investment in health system to ensure their protection from diseases and in this regard all available resources will be utilized.

He said that the government has already provided free medical services to its citizens while it was working on its reform agenda to make a drastic change in the health sector.

He said that COVID-19 vaccine will be made available free of cost to country's people. He added the government of China will provide free 500,000 doses of COVID-19 vaccine to Pakistan.

He said that all available resources were being utilized to ensure provision of safe vaccine for country's people as arranging vaccine for large population is not an easy task, he added.

He said that at first stage only frontline health workers will be eligible for COVID-19 vaccine while citizens of above 60 years will also be given priority. He added so far 400,000 health workers have been registered for vaccination and software has been developed besides resource management system to streamline registration process.

He said that the government has started training of all concerned staff for vaccination process including health care staff, logistic and digital staff besides others.

He said that Expanded Programme on Immunization (EPI) was given task for storage and vaccination as it had already trained staff and cold chain for the purpose and it will handle the storage of vaccine doses too.

He expressed the hope that this workshop will be helpful for capacity building of health journalists besides their better understanding on health issues while receiving fruitful information from the public and private experts.