Pakistan has received its first batch of Sinopharm vaccine on Monday. A Pakistan Air Force (PAF) plane IL-76, landed in Nur Khan PAF base, Rawalpindi, with 0.5 million doses of vaccine gifted to Pakistan by China.
Dr. Faisal Sultan, Special Assistant to the Prime Minister on National Health Services, was present at the Nur base to receive the Sinopharm vaccine. Frontline health workers and others employed in hospitals, medical facilities, etc across the country, will be administered the vaccine first.
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Upon the vaccine arrival, Dr. Faisal Sultan took to Twitter to express his gratitude to China, the National Command and Operation Center (NCOC), and all the frontline workers for their tireless contributions during the Covid-19 pandemic.
He stated, “Alhamdulliah we got the first batch of Sinopharm vaccines! Thank you to everyone who worked tirelessly for this. The NCOC and the provinces played a key role in countering COVID. I salute my front line healthcare workers for their efforts. They will be the first to get the vaccine.”
Read more: Pakistan to get half a million Covid-19 vaccine doses as a gift from China
الحمد اللہ ہمیں سینوفرم ویکسین کا پہلا بیچ ملا ہے! اس کے لئے انتھک محنت کرنے والے ہر شخص کا شکر گزار ہوں۔ COVID کا مقابلہ کرنے میں NCOC اور صوبوں نے اہم کردار ادا کیا۔ میں اپنے فرنٹ لائن ہیلتھ کیئر ورکرز کو ان کی کاوشوں کے لئے سلام پیش کرتا ہوں۔ویکسین سب سے پہلے انہیں لگے گی۔ pic.twitter.com/zfIdwF1GqN
— Faisal Sultan (@fslsltn) February 1, 2021
Arrangements have been made for the vaccine to be stored in Islamabad by NCOC. The vaccine will also be sent to other provinces especially Sindh and Balochistan via air-transport. NCOC has created a vaccine nerve center, with district and provincial level vaccine coordination and adult vaccination centers.
Besides Sinopharm, Pakistan had approved two other Covid-19 vaccines for emergency use on January 28, namely; Sputnik-V from Russa, and Oxford-AstraZeneca by the United Kingdom. The federal government also formulated a guideline for the emergency use of these three vaccines.
Read more: Prime Minister Imran Khan proposes equitable COVID vaccine supply at UN
On Saturday, in addition to the 500,000 doses of the Sinopharm vaccine, Pakistan, through the COVAX facility secured 17 million indicative doses of the AstraZeneca vaccine. Out of these doses, around 6-6.8 million doses will be available in the first quarter of this year, and the rest will be available in the second quarter. It is expected that the vaccine distribution will begin this month. AstraZeneca vaccine has already been approved by the Drug Regulatory Authority of Pakistan (DRAP).
“Happy to share that in addition to the 500,000 doses of Sinopharm, almost 7 million does [doses] of AstraZeneca to be made available in Q1 and given to the public free of cost,” Dr. Faisal Sultan, Special Assistant to Prime Minister on Health tweeted from his official Twitter handle.
Happy to share that in addition to the 500,000 doses of Sinopharm, almost 7 million does of AstraZeneca to be made available in Q1 and given to the public free of cost! Pakistan’s vaccine drive starts next week, beginning with frontline healthcare workers. pic.twitter.com/6nJACx9aL7
— Faisal Sultan (@fslsltn) January 30, 2021
Read more: KP government formulates a Covid-19 vaccine distribution strategy