Pakistan has restricted Oxford-AstraZeneca’s COVID-19 vaccine to be only used for the people under 40 years of age.
As per details, government has issued new guidelines regarding the use of Oxford-AstraZeneca’s COVID-19 vaccine in the country.
Apart from the age restriction, the interval between the two doses has been increased to 12 weeks instead of the previous 8-12 week.
DG Health – Dr Rana Muhammad Safdar has confirmed the two changes regarding the Oxford AstraZeneca and that they were made on the recommendations by a special committee comprising of health experts.
The two changes are aimed at ensuring operational ease. However, the changes are interim in wake of the new data/statistics from all around the world.
The development comes as Pakistan received its first batch of Oxford AstraZeneca COVID-19 vaccine comprising of 1.2 doses under WHO’s COVAX initiative.
The first shipment is likely to be followed by a second one in near future and will comprise of another 1.2 million doses.
It is pertinent to know that Pakistan launched its first COVID-19 vaccination programme on February 3rd after receiving 500,000 COVID-19 vaccine doses from China’s Sinopharm on February 1st.
The COVID-19 vaccination drive was launched simultaneously in federal capital along with provincial capitals namely Islamabad, Karachi, Lahore, Quetta and Peshawar.
Meanwhile the second phase of COVID-19 vaccination was launched on March 10th. The second phase of COVID-19 inoculation will focus on people who are aged 60 or above, as they’re more vulnerable to the novel virus.
Currently, Pakistan is administering a wide range of COVID-19 vaccines namely Sinopharm, Sinovac, CanSino-Bio and Sputnik to tackle the prevailing third wave of coronavirus in the country.
Pakistan has also started its domestic production of Chinese CanSino Bio COVID-19 vaccine at National Institute of Health (NIH).
The NIH facility is expected to churn up 100,000 vaccine doses by the end of current month.
