China confirms will provide Pakistan a ‘batch’ of coronavirus vaccines as ‘aid’

ISLAMABAD: The Chinese foreign ministry said on Sunday it would provide Pakistan a “batch” of coronavirus vaccines as “aid” and had directed Chinese companies to speed up the export of doses to Pakistan.
Pakistan’s Foreign Minister Shah Mahmood Qureshi said on Thursday China had agreed to provide half a million doses of the Chinese Sinopharm vaccine free of cost to Pakistan by January 31.
“In order to support our brothers and sisters in Pakistan, the Chinese government has decided to provide a batch of vaccines as aid and will actively coordinate with the relevant Chinese enterprise to speed up export of vaccines to Pakistan,” Chinese Foreign Ministry Spokesperson Hua Chunying said at a media briefing, adding that Chinese State Councillor Wang Yi had informed Pakistan’s foreign minister of the decision of the Chinese government.
“They have said send your aircraft and airlift this vaccine immediately. So this is a happy bit of news for us, and we will hopefully be successful in protecting ourselves using this vaccine,” Pakistan’s Qureshi had said at a press conference in Islamabad.
Pakistani regulators approved the Sinopharm vaccine for emergency use last Monday, two days after AstraZeneca’s vaccine developed with Oxford University was also approved.
“I thanked them and also told them we need more than this, and in the future we will need 1.1 million doses, and they reassured us and said by the end of February we plan to meet this requirement for you as well,” Qureshi added.
Qureshi said he had also raised the possibility of jointly manufacturing vaccines with China.