Pakistan on Wednesday (today), initiated nationwide COVID-19 vaccination process to curb the spread of novel virus in the country.
The COVID-19 vaccination drive has been launched simultaneously in federal capital along with provincial capitals namely Islamabad, Karachi, Lahore, Quetta and Peshawar, said National Command and Operations Center (NCOC).
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A ceremony was held at NCOC headquarters in Islamabad to mark the beginning of COVID-19 vaccination drive
Dr Rana Imran Sikander – head of the COVID-19 ward at PIMS, became the first Pakistani to get inoculated with COVID-19 vaccine.
Minister for Planning and Development Asad Umar attended the vaccination stressed that healthcare workers are real heroes in the fight against the pandemic.
For this reason, it was decided to administer the vaccine to the health workers in the first place, he said.
The development comes as Pakistan received 500,000 COVID-19 vaccine doses from China on Monday February 1st. The COVID-19 vaccine has been manufactured by a Chinese state owned company ‘Sinopharm’.
In Sindh, CM Murad Ali Shah kicked of the COVID-19 vaccination process at a ceremony held at the Ojha Campus of the Dow University of Health Sciences (DUHS).
Meanwhile, CM Jam Kamal Khan and CM Mahmood Khan inaugurated COVID-19 vaccination drives in Quetta and Peshawar respectively.
The province-wise distribution of COVID-19 vaccine is as follows;
Sindh – 84,000
Punjab – 70,000
Balochistan – 10,300
Khyber Pakhtunkhwa – 65,000
Other Vaccine options for Pakistan
Sinopharm COVID-19 vaccine is not the only option available to Pakistan. CanSino – another Chinese pharmaceutical giant has offered 20 million vaccine doses to Pakistan. CanSino vaccine trials are currently underway in Russia, Mexico, China and Pakistan.
Meanwhile, AstraZeneca is also expected to provide 17 million COVID-19 vaccine doses to Pakistan, as confirmed by Asad Umar on January 30th last week.
