Pakistan has a big idea: Send 13,000 teams led by women to vaccinate the hesitant
The vaccinators are going door-to-door in what the government is calling an unprecedented effort, toting coolers with a mix of COVID vaccine types.
KARACHI, Pakistan – A doctor gives a pep talk to some two dozen women sitting in a hall of a medical center. "We've got Pfizer. We've got Moderna. We've got Sinovac," says Dr. Kishwar Tanwir, who oversees vaccinations in the Pehlwan Goth district of the Pakistani city of Karachi.
The women were about to go door-to-door to offer COVID-19 jabs on a recent February day – part of some 13,000 teams led by women that were dispatched across the southern province of Sindh to vaccinate some 12 million people over the age of 12.
This dramatic intervention by the Sindh government aims to vaccinate a cohort they have struggled to reach: some 25% of residents who have not had their first dose, despite vaccines being program, the U.S. and China.
