ISLAMABAD: Pakistan received a new batch of two million doses of COVID-19 vaccines from China on Wednesday amid a shortage of the crucial jabs in various parts of the country.
Authorities shut down several vaccination centers including in the capital city, Islamabad, and the southern Sindh province last week due to supply chain obstacles which the government hopes to overcome with the latest imports.
The National Command and Operation Center (NCOC), the federal body dealing with the COVID-19 pandemic, said that the procurement of two million doses of Sinovac on Wednesday was part of a planned purchase deal signed with China.
“These doses will be deployed to all vaccine centers across the country for which arrangements are already in place,” the NCOC said in a statement on Tuesday, adding: “The daily average administering of doses across the country will be enhanced considerably.”
The South Asian Nation of 220 million people has emerged from a third wave of the coronavirus outbreak in recent months and began a mass vaccination drive for all adults earlier this month.
It is heavily reliant on China for its supply – three of the six vaccines approved for use in Pakistan are Sinopharm, SinoVac and CanSinoBio produced by Beijing.
According to data shared with Arab News by Pakistani health chief Dr. Faisal Sultan, as of June 9, the country had received 14.5 million vaccine doses, of which 11.06 million had been purchased from pharmaceutical companies, while China donated 2.7 million and a consignment of 1.34 million was contributed by Covax, the global dose-sharing platform for developing nations.
On Monday, Pakistan signed a deal with Pfizer for an additional 13 million COVID-19 doses without releasing more details about the agreement, including the contract amount.
As of June 8, 9.9 million doses of the 14.5 million total doses received had been administered, according to data provided by the health chief.
As per a government portal, 3.6 percent of Pakistan’s 70 million adult population has been fully inoculated so far.
Of the doses administered, the majority of the people — 3,513,088 — have received a Sinovac jab, while 2,548,788 people have been given the Sinopharm vaccine, Sultan said.
In recent weeks, Pakistan has witnessed a steady decline in COVID-19 cases and its positivity ratio.
According to official data, 930 people tested positive for the disease and 39 deaths were reported on Wednesday, taking the total tally to 950,768 and 22,073 fatalities since last year.
Pakistan receives new batch of two million COVID-19 vaccine doses from China
https://arab.news/rwy3e
Pakistan receives new batch of two million COVID-19 vaccine doses from China
- Procurement of two million doses of Sinovac is part of an agreement with Beijing
- Officials to restore inoculation drive with new consignment after several centers shut down due to vaccine shortage last week, NCOC says
No casualties as blast derails Jaffar Express train in Pakistan’s south
- Passengers were stranded and railway staffers were clearing the track after blast, official says
- In March 2025, separatist militants hijacked the same train with hundreds of passengers aboard
QUETTA: A blast hit Jaffar Express and derailed four carriages of the passenger train in Pakistan’s southern Sindh province on Monday, officials said, with no casualties reported.
The blast occurred at the Abad railway station when the Peshawar-bound train was on its way to Sindh’s Sukkur city from Quetta, according to Pakistan Railways’ Quetta Division controller Muhammad Kashif.
No group immediately claimed responsibility for the bomb attack, but passenger trains have often been targeted by Baloch separatist outfits in the restive Balochistan province that borders Sindh.
“Four bogies of the train were derailed due to the intensity of the explosion,” Kashif told Arab News. “No casualty was reported in the latest attack on passenger train.”
Another railway employee, who was aboard the train and requested anonymity, said the train was heading toward Sukkur from Jacobabad when they heard the powerful explosion, which derailed power van among four bogies.
“A small piece of the railway track has been destroyed,” he said, adding that passengers were now standing outside the train and railway staffers were busy clearing the track.
In March last year, fighters belonging to the Balochistan Liberation Army (BLA) separatist group had stormed Jaffar Express with hundreds of passengers on board and took them hostage. The military had rescued them after an hours-long operation that left 33 militants, 23 soldiers, three railway staff and five passengers dead.
The passenger train, which runs between Balochistan’s provincial capital of Quetta and Peshawar in the country’s northwest, had been targeted in at least four bomb attacks last year since the March hijacking, according to an Arab News tally.
Pakistan Railways says it has beefed up security arrangements for passenger trains in the province and increased the number of paramilitary troops on Jaffar Express since the hijacking in March, but militants have continued to target them in the restive region.
Balochistan, Pakistan’s southwestern province that borders Iran and Afghanistan, is the site of a decades-long insurgency waged by Baloch separatist groups who often attack security forces and foreigners, and kidnap government officials.
The separatists accuse the central government of stealing the region’s resources to fund development elsewhere in the country. The Pakistani government denies the allegations and says it is working for the uplift of local communities in Balochistan.
