ISLAMABAD: Just over a half of Pakistan's health workers have received a COVID-19 shot since inoculations began last month, while a poll released on Friday suggested nearly half had concerns over China's Sinopharm, the only vaccine available so far.
Pakistan had distributed 504,400 Sinopharm vaccine doses to provincial authorities by Feb. 20, and 230,000 frontline health workers had received a shot by Friday, according to health minister Faisal Sultan.
In January, Sultan said 400,000 health workers had been registered to get the vaccine.
A poll of 555 medical workers conducted by Gallup Pakistan and a national physicians' association between Feb. 12 and Feb. 20 said 59% of health workers had not yet been offered a shot.
Sinopharm is one of four vaccines approved for use by Pakistan for health workers and is currently the only vaccine available in the country of 220 million.
Some 81% of health workers said they were willing to be vaccinated, but 46% said they would prefer Pfizer or AstraZeneca over the Sinopharm shot. Some 58% said a vaccine developed so quickly could not be guaranteed to be safe.
"Chinese is a brand not synonymous with medical innovation," Bilal Gilani, of Gallup Pakistan, told Reuters. "If Pfizer or AstraZeneca were offered, there would be a much higher uptake."
Pfizer is a US company while AstraZeneca is Anglo-Swedish.
Gilani said doctors did not trust government recommendations and instead looked to social media for information on the vaccine.
"No doctor is refusing to get the vaccine. Some of them are waiting for the Oxford one, AstraZeneca," Salman Kazmi, General Secretary of the Young Doctor's Association Pakistan, told Reuters from Lahore.
"But there are some myths and delays, that is probably why the speed of vaccination is not high."
While a preference for Western vaccines may be a stumbling block in the case of COVID shots, polio vaccination efforts in Pakistan have had to grapple with Islamist militant attacks and conspiracy theories the shots are a Western ploy to sterilise Muslims.
Pakistan health workers hesitate over Sinopharm vaccine, poll says
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Pakistan health workers hesitate over Sinopharm vaccine, poll says
- Some 81% of health workers said they were willing to be vaccinated, but 46% said they would prefer Pfizer or AstraZeneca
- Some 58% of medical workers said a vaccine developed so quickly could not be guaranteed to be safe
Pakistan, seven Muslim nations back Palestinian technocratic body, stress Gaza-West Bank unity
- The National Committee for the Administration of the Gaza Strip was announced on January 14
- Muslim nations call for consolidation of the ceasefire and unimpeded humanitarian aid into Gaza
ISLAMABAD: Pakistan and seven other Muslim-majority countries on Thursday welcomed the formation of a temporary Palestinian technocratic body to administer Gaza, stressing that it must manage daily civilian affairs while preserving the institutional and territorial link between the Gaza Strip and the West Bank amid the ongoing peace efforts.
In a joint statement, the foreign ministers of Pakistan, Egypt, Jordan, Saudi Arabia, Qatar, Türkiye, Indonesia and the United Arab Emirates said the newly announced National Committee for the Administration of the Gaza Strip would play a central role during the second phase of a broader peace plan aimed at ending the war and paving the way for Palestinian self-governance.
“The Ministers emphasize the importance of the National Committee commencing its duties in managing the day-to-day affairs of the people of Gaza, while preserving the institutional and territorial link between the West Bank and the Gaza Strip, ensuring the unity of Gaza, and rejecting any attempts to divide it,” the statement said.
The committee, announced on Jan. 14, is a temporary transitional body established under United Nations Security Council Resolution 2803 and is to operate in coordination with the Palestinian Authority, the ministers said.
The statement said the move forms part of the second phase of US President Donald Trump’s Comprehensive Peace Plan for Gaza, which the ministers said they supported, praising Trump’s efforts to end the war, ensure the withdrawal of Israeli forces and prevent the annexation of the occupied West Bank.
The top leaders of all eight Muslim countries attended a meeting with Trump in New York last September, shortly before he unveiled the Gaza peace plan.
The ministers also called for the consolidation of the ceasefire, unimpeded humanitarian aid into Gaza, early recovery and reconstruction and the eventual return of the Palestinian Authority to administer the territory, leading to a just and sustainable peace based on UN resolutions and a two-state solution on pre-1967 lines with East Jerusalem as the Palestinian capital.
