Refusing to take COVID jab? Pakistan's Punjab warns of blocking SIM cards

Pakistan's Punjab is resorting to innovative measures to deal with COVID-19 vaccine hesitancy.

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New Delhi: The provincial government in Pakistan’s Punjab seems to have come up with an innovative way to tackle vaccine hesitancy. It has decided to block SIM cards of citizens who have refused to take the jab, ANI reported.

Citing ARY News, the news agency said that the decision was taken at a meeting in Lahore chaired by the province's health minister Dr. Yasmin Rashid. She claimed that there has been "considerable decrease" in coronavirus cases in the province due to mass vaccinations and adherence to COVID-19 appropriate behavior. 

Although as per ARY News, a report compiled by the Punjab primary health department said that the province has failed to achieve its set target for coronavirus vaccination. 

Around 300,000 people did not return to receive the second dose after receiving their first dose since the start of the vaccination drive on February 2, Dawn reported. 

“There is a possibility that some of them might have died before getting the second dose,” ANI quoted an official of Pakistan's ministry of national health services (NHS) as saying. He said other reasons for not returning for the second dose might be that people could have contracted the coronavirus after the first dose and thus decided to skip the next one. For others, he suspects they might have fallen for the negative propaganda regarding COVID-19 vaccine. 

(With agency inputs)