The government on Friday announced the registration of people who are 50 and above as it takes its coronavirus vaccination drive to the next level, reported 24NewsHD TV channel.

Federal Minister for Planning and Development Asad Umar said that the coronavirus registration for people who are 50 and above will open on March 30.

In a tweet, the minister said that everybody who is 50 plus must register when the registration is opened for them. He added that the registration of those citizens who are 60 and older had already been opened.

The vaccination drive to inoculate those 60 and above began on March 10, in which the oldest person who registered will be vaccinated first. The senior citizens are being administered the Chinese Sinopharm vaccine.

The government had launched the coronavirus vaccine drive in February beginning with the healthcare workers in the first phase after receiving 500,000 Sinopharm doses from China.

The announcement came amid reports that the Pakistani government had decided to purchase seven million doses of the Chinese vaccines.

Alongside expediting the process of vaccination, Pakistan is witnessing a major surge in coronavirus cases during the third wave as the positivity rate of Covid cases rises to 10.29 percent.

According to the daily NCOC statistics on Friday, coronavirus has claimed 63 more lives in Pakistan during the past 24 hours, taking the overall death toll to 14,091. As many as 4,368 fresh infections were reported during the period; the total count of active cases was 40,120 and the positivity rate stood at 10.29 percent.

Shehbaz Sharif gets vaccine shot

PML-N President Shehbaz Sharif has received got his first jab of coronavirus vaccine in jail on Friday.

It may be mentioned that an accountability judge the other day ordered the Punjab authorities to administer coronavirus vaccine to Shehbaz Sharif within two days.

The vaccine jab was injected to the PML-N President at Kot Lakhpat Jail in Lahore.

Daniyal Aziz contracts corona

Another PML-N leader Daniyal Aziz has been tested coronavirus positive.