ISLAMABAD: The Pakistan government has entered into an agreement with China to buy 27.5 million COVID-19 vaccine doses in the form of prepared jabs as well as raw materials to produce shots locally in order to step up an ongoing national vaccination drive, local media reported on Friday.
On Thursday, officials said hundreds of COVID-19 vaccination centers across Pakistan had discontinued their services due to supply chain obstacles, with the government saying it would be able to provide new supplies to all provinces by Sunday. Authorities in Pakistan’s largest city of Karachi also decided on Thursday to temporarily shut down a number of immunization centers due to a shortage of vaccine jabs.
The vaccine shortage has hit the Sindh province worst, with authorities saying they had shut down at least 40 percent of inoculation centers there. People in Punjab also complained about the unavailability of vaccines in cities like Lahore, Chakwal, Jhelum and Rawalpindi alongwith and several rural areas of the province.
“The National Institute of Health (NIH) said that the [27.5 million] purchased vaccines included Sinopharm, CanSino and SinoVac,” Pakistan’s Express Tribune newspaper reported, adding that the vaccine doses would be provided in phases by December this year.
“The NIH said that the purchase agreement included 23 million doses of Sinopharm, 2 million ready-made vaccines and raw material from CanSino and 2.5 million doses of Sinovac,” the newspaper said.
On Wednesday, Pakistani health chief Dr. Faisal Sultan said two million coronavirus vaccine doses were currently present in the nation’s inventory, adding that reported shortages at some centers around the country were only temporary.
Sultan told Arab News last Friday Pakistan had received 14.5 million doses of the coronavirus vaccine since it kicked off its vaccination campaign in February and planned to buy and receive over 90 million more jabs to vaccinate its adult population in the second half of 2021.
The National Command and Operation Center, the federal government’s main body overseeing the pandemic response, said on Friday 266,959 vaccines were administered across Pakistan on Thursday, with 12,750,760 total vaccines administered so far since the vaccination drive kicked off in February.
Vaccine Statistics:
Vaccine administered across Pakistan on 17 June: 266,959
Total vaccine administered till now: 12,750,760— NCOC (@OfficialNcoc) June 18, 2021
On June 18, the body said, the national coronavirus positive rate stood at 1.90 percent, with 1,043 infections and 39 deaths reported in the last 24 hours.
Statistics 18 June 21:
Total Tests in Last 24 Hours: 54,647
Positive Cases: 1043
Positivity % : 1.90%
Deaths : 39— NCOC (@OfficialNcoc) June 18, 2021