KARACHI: Pakistan has approached the World Bank for funding of about $150 million to purchase coronavirus vaccines, officials confirmed on Sunday.

The government is seeking to divert the global lender's $200 million Pandemic Response Effectiveness Project (PREP) for Pakistan into the vaccine purchase. The PREP was approved by the World Bank in April but has not been fully utilized. 

"The World Bank is actively working with GoP (Government of Pakistan) to identify funding sources among the ongoing operations supporting the country’s response to the pandemics, and beyond," Mariam Sara Altaf, external affairs officer at the World Bank office in Islamabad, told Arab News, confirming that the bank had been approached by Pakistani authorities.

A formal request for the funds was made by the Economic Coordination Division (EAD) on the recommendation of the Ministry of National Health Services.  

Officials at the EAD told Arab News that around $150 million of the PREP fund remains unutilized and could be used to purchase the vaccine.  

“The ministry of health officials have been advised that the available funds can be diverted for the purchase of vaccine,” an EAD official said, requesting not to be named.

The World Bank’s PREP was meant to help establish quarantine facilities in collaboration with public and private hospitals and supply equipment to hospitals, including ventilators and protective gear for doctors and paramedics.

Last month, the Pakistani government said it would allocate an initial $150 million to purchase COVID-19 vaccines directly from the international market with the immunization drive expected to commence by the second quarter of the next year.  

In the first phase of immunization, the most vulnerable 5 percent of the country's 210 million population, such as health workers and persons above age 65, would be vaccinated.

According to health ministry officials, Pakistan is already in direct contact with vaccine producers and the Global Alliance for Vaccines and Immunizations (GAVI).

“The health ministry is at a fast pace basis working on the data of the companies which have developed the vaccine, including the efficacy," the ministry's spokesman, Sajid Shah, told Arab News.