The sale of privately-imported Russian vaccine Sputnik V against coronavirus has started in Pakistan. At least 430 people were vaccinated against coronavirus overnight at three private hospitals in Karachi.
The Russian vaccine is now available for people above 18 across the country, AGP Pharma Managing Director Kamran Mirza told Jang.
He said his firm had procured 2 million doses of Sputnik V from Russia. Of these, 50,000 doses had arrived in the city and are currently available at three private hospitals. Around 1,000 people have already received the Russian vaccine at OMI Hospital, Ziauddin Hospital and South City Hospital.
The cost of the vaccine has been fixed at Rs12,268.
Mirza said that around 600,000-700,000 people had already registered themselves for the Russian vaccine, which had been made available in Lahore and Islamabad as well.
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He thanked the Pakistani and Russian governments, and the judiciary for making it available to the public to help overcome the COVID-19 crisis in the country. The remaining doses of Sputnik V will arrive in Pakistan within a week.
COVID-19 cases in Pakistan
Coronavirus has claimed 83 more lives in Pakistan during the past 24 hours, taking the overall death toll to 14,613. The latest statistics of the National Command and Operation Centre (NCOC) showed the COVID-19 has claimed 83 more lives and 5,234 fresh infections were reported during the period.
During the period of a day, the total count of active cases was recorded at 56,347 and the positivity rate stood at 10.43 per cent.
The health facilities across the country conducted 50,170 coronavirus detection tests, taking the total number of COVID-19 tests to 10,297,544 since the first case was reported.
According to the statistics, 81 patients were declared critical, adding to the total number of patients suffering from sensitive health conditions up to 3,384.
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Overall 607,205 people have recovered from the virus including 1,931 who have regained their health from COVID-19 during the past 24 hours.