ISLAMABAD: Pakistan will take about a decade to vaccinate 75 percent of its population, Bloomberg, an American publication, said in a recently published article about the global disparity between the number of vaccines administered to people in rich and poor countries.
The write-up said more than 46 percent of deaths caused by COVID-19 had taken place in the United States, United Kingdom and the European Union, warning that many nations where the virus was now spreading were “ones where current rates of vaccine rollout won’t result in herd immunity for years, or even decades.”
Based on Bloomberg’s vaccine tracker, the article showed that countries like the US, Britain and Israel were likely to reach the 75 percent target within three months while others like Pakistan were expected to immunize the same level of their population in about a decade.
Germany and France were likely to acquire herd immunity through vaccination in about a year, Argentina in about two and a half years, and India in a little over three years.
The article raised concern over the issue due to the “general indifference to medical problems once they stop bothering rich countries.”
The UK has until now administered at least one dose of vaccine to about 60 percent of its adult population. President Joe Biden’s new administration also aims to vaccinate about 200 million people by the end of this month.
Most underdeveloped countries, however, have even been finding it difficult to get coronavirus vaccines through a UN-sponsored program for low-income countries.
Pakistan received Sinopharm vaccines from China in February and began its immunization drive from its frontline health workers and elderly population.
The country has so far reported 696,184 confirmed coronavirus cases and 14,924 deaths.
While the number of infections has shot up significantly in recent weeks, forcing the authorities to reimpose virus-related restrictions, Pakistan has also witnessed significant vaccine hesitancy that has heightened the risk of the further spread of the virus.