ISLAMABAD: Pakistani media reported on Wednesday that the country was going through a coronavirus vaccine shortage ‘crisis,’ having exhausted its supplies of both Chinese and European vaccine doses.
On Tuesday, Dr. Yasmin Rashid, the health minister of Pakistan’s largest and most densely populated Punjab province, denied media reports the provincial government was running short of COVID-19 vaccines and had taken a decision to halt its immunization campaign for two days.
“Pakistan faced a COVID-19 vaccine crisis on Tuesday due to exhaustion of its Chinese and European vaccine stocks, compelling federal authorities to dispatch around 150,000 reserved doses in emergency to Sindh and Punjab to meet their daily requirements while SOS signals were sent to Beijing and COVAX for the provision of vaccine shipments,” Pakistan’s The News reported on Wednesday.
It quoted an official of the National Health Services, Regulations and Coordination as saying: “At the moment, we are facing a shortage of different Chinese and European vaccines that are being used to inoculate our population. Sinopharm and SinoVac vaccines are only being administered to those requiring the second dose while AstraZeneca’s stocks are also near exhaustion.”
The News reported that the vaccination process had been “halted completely” at the Expo Center Lahore on Tuesday due to the suspension of vaccine supplies from the federal government, while “many youngsters were refused vaccination at Expo Center Karachi and some other vaccination centers due to shortage of Sinopharm, Sinovac and Cansino vaccines while AstraZeneca was only being offered to people of 40 years of age and above in Karachi.”
The health ministry official was quoted as saying the federal government had dispatched 100,000 doses of different vaccines to Sindh, including 50,000 doses of Sinopharm, 40,000 doses of Sinovac and 10,000 doses of AstraZeneca, and urged provincial authorities to divert vaccines from under-utilized COVID-19 vaccination centers to mega centers.
“Similarly, the official said, they have dispatched 50,000 doses of various vaccines including 30,000 doses of Sinopharm, and 10,000 doses each of Cansino and AstraZeneca to Punjab to continue the vaccination process at its mega vaccination center and also advised the provincial authorities to divert the unutilized vaccine stocks to its mega center in Lahore,” The News said.
“We are expecting one million doses of Cansino vaccine by the end of this week from China while are expecting around 12.5 million doses of AstraZeneca through COVAX by the end of this month but there is no confirmation in this regard,” the official was quoted as saying.
According to data from health ministry officials, Pakistan has received a total of 14.5 million doses of the coronavirus vaccine since it kicked off its vaccination campaign in February and plans to buy and receive over 90 million more jabs to vaccinate its adult population in the second half of 2021.
As of June 15, over 12 million doses of the 14.5 million doses had been administered.
Vaccine Statistics:
Vaccine administered across Pakistan on 15 June: 369,274
Total vaccine administered till now: 12,067,171— NCOC (@OfficialNcoc) June 16, 2021
Last week, Pakistan’s federal government approved $1.1 billion in funding to buy COVID-19 vaccines from the international market to vaccinate 70 percent of the country’s adult population by the end of the year.
Since the start of June, Pakistan has seen a nationwide drop in new COVID-19 cases and the coronavirus positivity rate.
According to the National Command and Operation Center (NCOC), the federal body dealing with the country’s COVID-19 response, Pakistan on Wednesday reported a 2.46 percent positivity rate for COVID-19, with 1038 new cases and 46 deaths.
Statistics 16 June 21:
Total Tests in Last 24 Hours: 42,113
Positive Cases: 1038
Positivity % : 2.46%
Deaths : 46— NCOC (@OfficialNcoc) June 16, 2021