She's only got one name, like many people here.

They have years of experience, frequently fanning out across Pakistan to administer the oral polio vaccine to millions of children.Īt the medical center in Pehlwan Goth, Namra, a 21-year-old health worker waits for a medic to fill her blue cooler box with a mix of different vaccines stored in a deep freezer.

Pakistan dispatches female health workers for these sorts of public campaigns because they're more likely to get access to women in conservative households who don't speak to men. Pakistan's eventual goal: bringing the Sindh province's first dose vaccine rate to 90 to 95%. If it works, it could be a model for other developing countries, struggling to boost their vaccination rates. It's not known how many countries have tried to bring the vaccine to people's doorsteps, but senior Pakistani health officials said they were not aware of any other effort this large anywhere else. 'People who are less literate, less aware about the COVID-19 vaccine.' Sohail Raza Shaikh, the government's point person for COVID-19. 'The objective of the door-to-door campaign was basically to focus on these people,' says Dr.

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 widely available for the past year through supplies provided by the U.N.-backed COVAX program, the U.S. 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. Kishwar Tanwir, who oversees vaccinations in the Pehlwan Goth district of the Pakistani city of Karachi. KARACHI, Pakistan – A doctor gives a pep talk to some two dozen women sitting in a hall of a medical center.

Big rich town listen