The initiative targets non-working women, who primarily stay at home, and children over the age of 12 years old, as it was found through anecdotal evidence that many in this population remain unvaccinated, especially in Karachi's Korangi and Malir districts and District East.
“We have decided to send LHWs [lady health workers] and female vaccinators to each and every house in Sindh to vaccinate people, especially women, against COVID-19 because most of the non-working women in Karachi as well as other major cities and rural areas of Sindh have been found to be unvaccinated,” Member of the Parliamentary Assembly (MPA) Qasim Soomro, parliamentary health secretary in the provincial assembly, told The News.
The MPA said that the initiative aims to remedy previous vaccination campaigns, which by and large did not focus on the vaccination of women. Many men in Sindh have received the vaccine through vaccination mandates from their employers.
“Vaccination of women against COVID-19 has largely been ignored by the heads of their families, especially those women who are housewives and don’t work in public and private sector offices and businesses. This section of the population is most affected due to COVID-19, especially the Omicron variant, which is targeting unvaccinated population very easily," he said.
As of Thursday morning, almost 780 people had tested positive for Covid-19 in Sindh in the past 24 hours, with 85 per cent of cases occurring in Karachi.