ISLAMABAD: Pakistan’s health chief Dr. Faisal Sultan has said a special plane would be flown to China in the next few days to transport the first tranche of the coronavirus vaccine to Pakistan, local media reported on Friday.
Pakistan is all set to approve the Russian Sputnik COVID-19 vaccine for emergency use, a government official said on Monday, a week after China’s Sinopharm and Oxford University’s AstraZeneca vaccine got authorization.
The South Asian nation of 220 million has so far reported 541,031 coronavirus infections and 11,560 deaths.
Last week, foreign minister Shah Mahmood Qureshi said China had promised to provide 500,000 vaccine doses to Pakistan by January 31.
The first batch of the coronavirus vaccine would reach Pakistan on Saturday via a special Pakistan International Airlines flight, the Pakistani foreign ministry said, as quoted by Dunya News.
“It is expected that the first consignment [from China] will have around 500,000 doses of vaccine and administration of vaccine will be started at the earliest,” Sultan told the Dawn newspaper.
“We are fully prepared for this undertaking [vaccination campaign] and also united in this mission. Our coordinated efforts have brought us a long way,” Dr. Sultan added, saying the federal and provincial governments would work together to make the campaign successful.
“The process will begin with frontline health care workers and will proceed to senior citizens of more than 65 years of age who are at high risk,” Sultan said at a briefing at the Senate Standing Committee on National Health Services (NHS). “In this regard, all efforts have been done. Procurement of vaccine will be made through vaccine companies directly and also by Covax.”
Covax is an alliance set up by the Global Alliance for Vaccines and Immunization (Gavi), Coalition for Epidemic Preparedness Innovations (CEPI) and World Health Organization (WHO) in April last year. It has pledged free vaccines for 20 percent of Pakistan’s population.
