Pakistan might be expecting the Covid-19 vaccine in the first quarter of 2021, informed Dr. Faisal Sultan, Special Assistant to Prime Minister on National Health Services, Regulations, and Coordination.
“We will be able to get coronavirus vaccine with more than one resource, good price, and reasonable timeline,” revealed Dr. Faisal. The government has been in contact with several companies, including Russain and Chinese, he added. Dr. Faisal assures that as soon as the decision is made, which may be in the next few weeks, Pakistan would receive the vaccine doses.
Read more: COVID-19: Pakistanis join final trials for Chinese-made vaccine
Dr. Faisal expressed concern over the second wave of Covid-19 and the thousands of cases reported every day. He believes the second wave is more severe than the first and the current scenario needs to be addressed immediately. On another occasion, he reiterated that the battle against Covid-19 could be won if people are resilient and follow the standard operating procedures SOPs correctly. The situation could worsen if SOPs are not followed as the daily number of cases are skyrocketing.
Chinese company interested in conducting trials of Coronavirus vaccine in Pakistan https://t.co/L9ukjpizuD pic.twitter.com/WE75p0KSCv
— Times of lsIamabad (@TimesofIslambad) December 2, 2020
“I am satisfied with the steps taken by the government but I appeal to the people to understand the gravity of the situation”, he stated.
On 7th December, Federal Interior Minister Ijaz Shah had been administered a trial vaccine of COVID-19 from China at the University of Health Sciences.
“Interior Minister Ijaz Shah was administered the vaccine, which has been in phase three of clinical trials,” said UHS Vice-Chancellor of UHS, Prof Dr. Javed Akram.
Read more: Are Pakistan’s health systems prepared for a COVID-19 vaccine?
“The minister’s staff members were also administered the trial vaccine,” Prof Akram added.
Pakistan has initiated trials of the China-made vaccine in Pakistan against coronavirus. China provided Pakistan with the vaccine developed by Chinese biotech CanSino Bio in partnership with the Beijing Institute of Biotechnology.
https://twitter.com/I_M_Imrann/status/1334825812806123521
Up till now, the vaccine has given positive results, anticipating that the effort would meet its desired results.
Read more: Interior Minister Ijaz Shah administered first dose of trial COVID-19 vaccine
The vaccine has given the desired results in China and did not report any side effects. The vaccine is under trial in various countries including Mexico, Russia, Chile, Argentina, Saudi Arabia. Pakistan has been allotted 8000 recruits out of a total of 40,000. The trials are being conducted in five centers in Islamabad, Karachi, and Lahore.
Dr. Faisal had also said that the federal government has allocated funds to get the vaccine. The vaccine will be administered to people in phases. However, the frontline doctors and medical staff will be the first ones to be administered the vaccine.
Then, the elderly population will be administered the vaccine in the next phase. SAPM added that the vaccine will be available to people free of cost.
Read more: Pakistan in talks with China, Russia to get vaccines
Special Assistant to Prime Minister on Health Dr. Faisal Sultan said that the #coronavirus vaccine is likely to be available in Pakistan in February next year.
For More Details: https://t.co/0HkO2dl07h#ARYNews pic.twitter.com/HGAEYBr6LG
— ARY NEWS (@ARYNEWSOFFICIAL) December 7, 2020
Read more: Whole world must benefit from Covid vaccine: WHO chief