Economic Coordination Committee (ECC) has reportedly approved the allocation of US$ 1 billion for procuring COVID-19 vaccine.
Sources say that ECC meeting chaired by Federal Finance Minister Shaukat Tarin has approved US$ 1 billion grant for COVID-19 vaccine procurement.
An amount of US$ 180 million has been approved for the first phase of vaccine procurement by National Disaster Management Authority (NDMA).
The US$ 1 billion will be utilized to procure various COVID-19 vaccines namely CanSino, Sinopharm, Sinovac, and Pfizer.
During the meeting, the forum also approved Rs 1.016 billion for Controller General of Pakistan, Rs 378 million for the education deparment, Rs 330 million for Auditor General of Pakistan.
Furthermore, grant for payment of fees of students in underprivileged areas and funds for Ehsaas ‘Koi Bhooka Na Soye’ were also approved by the ECC meeting.
In addition to it, ECC’s agenda for the meeting also included Rs 740 million grant for the marketing campaign of a new incentive scheme for boosting remittances.
It is to be noted that Pakistan achieved the notable milestone of administering 10 million COVID-19 vaccine doses on Wednesday (today).
Pakistan is currently utilizing a total of six COVID-19 vaccines namely Sinopharm, CansinoBio, Sputnik V, Oxford AstraZeneca, Pfizer and Sinovac to carryout nation-wide inoculation drive against the novel virus.
According to NCOC figures, 4,741,579 people have been partially vaccinated against COVID-19 with 2,540,238 people being fully vaccinated against the novel virus with the country administering 335,790 COVID-19 vaccine doses in the last 24 hours.