Islamabad — Pakistan’s tough restrictions to end vaccine hesitancy came into force on Friday, with unvaccinated people being barred from domestic flights, trains, malls and restaurants.

The authorities ordered airlines not to let any unvaccinated people board domestic flights, Aviation Minister Ghulam Sarwar Khan said. "It will be implemented strictly."

Unvaccinated people were also not being allowed to travel by train.

Malls and restaurants were checking online vaccination certificates for entry, said Hamza Shafqaat, administrator of the capital Islamabad.

Similar restriction were being observed in all other cities including the metropolis Karachi with its 20 million population, local administration chief Murtaza Wahab said.

The new restrictions come into force days after the government announced it would begin the vaccination of children aged 12 and older in an attempt to ramp up a slow national inoculation drive.

More than 80 million people have received at least one dose of the vaccine so far, according to statistics released by the Health Ministry.

The government is struggling to meet the target of fully vaccinating 80 million people, around half of the country’s adult population, by the end of the year.

Vaccine hesitancy, especially among people in conservative rural areas, is common amid rumours including one that the vaccine is a Western conspiracy to sterilise people.   

More than 1.2 million people have been infected since the pandemic hit the country, with deaths approaching 28,000.

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