Umrah vaccination halted in Pakistan: what pilgrims and overseas job seekers should do now

The federal health ministry has halted the meningitis and influenza vaccination process for religious pilgrims and overseas job seekers, after scrapping what it calls a flawed vaccine tender. Until a new tender is floated, which the ministry expects within a month, pilgrims have been told to arrange their mandatory shots through their travel agents.

The ministry has also abolished the Border Health Services (BHS) arrangement that ran these vaccinations, and the BHS officials who floated the cancelled tender have been arrested.

Why was the vaccination stopped?

The ministry says a high-level inquiry ordered by Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif found “severe flaws and financial irregularities” in a public-private partnership contract for the vaccines. Under the deal, a private company was to buy the vaccines, with fees paid into a Nadra account and then split between BHS and the company.

The main complaint was price. The new contract would have charged about Rs4,500 per pilgrim, according to the allegations, against roughly Rs1,250 per dose under the earlier arrangement. Seven companies have challenged the bidding in the Islamabad High Court.

The paperwork trail is messy. The ministry set up its own six-member procurement committee on 9 May. A month later, on 10 June, BHS formed a separate committee of its own and went ahead with a tender independently. The ministry says that tender was never authorised.

Health Minister Mustafa Kamal said those responsible “will be fixed for keeping the ministry in the dark”, and added that he would not tolerate any attempt to defame him.

What pilgrims and job seekers should do now

• Get vaccinated through your travel agent or Umrah operator, as the ministry has advised, until the government counters reopen.
• Keep the certificate safe. Pakistani rules require meningitis and polio vaccination records before departure, and the Sindh government has also made a flu shot compulsory for pilgrims leaving from Karachi. The deadline for the current vaccination requirements was extended to 20 November.
• Only use a recognised hospital or clinic. Officials say past uncoordinated purchases led to fake vaccination certificates, which caused trouble for travellers at airports.
• If you already paid the fee through Nadra’s Pak ID app, ask your agent or the airport health desk about the reserved doses. According to media reports, about 4,000 doses were kept aside for people who had already paid.

What changed at the airport?

According to media reports from Karachi, the emergency BHS vaccination counter at Jinnah Terminal has been removed, most dispensary staff were relieved and daily-wage workers were told to stay home until further notice. The ministry has not given a date for the service to restart.

Why it matters

Thousands of Pakistanis leave every week for Umrah, and many more for jobs in the Gulf, where vaccination records are part of the paperwork. A gap in a government service usually means higher prices from private providers and more room for fake certificates. The next thing to watch is the replacement tender, and whether the per-dose price comes back closer to the Rs1,250 that the complaining companies say is possible.