Pakistan has signed a deal for the procurement of Pfizer COVID-19 vaccine.
As per details, Pakistan has secured an agreement aimed at procuring 13 million doses of Pfizer COVID-19 vaccine which are expected to reach Pakistan by July.
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Pakistan will also receive 12 million doses of AstraZeneca which will be received by Pakistan in early August later this year.
Pakistan had received its first shipment of Pfizer COVID-19 vaccine comprising of around 100,000 doses on May 28th last month. however, the government had reserved this limited stock for people who are immunocompromised – with weak immune systems making them significantly more vulnerable to COIVD-19 coronavirus.
It is to be noted that Pakistan is also expected to receive 10 million doses of Russia’s Sputnik V by the end of July next month. The first batch of Russian Sputnik V vaccine comprising of one million doses will reach Pakistan in the first week of July.
It is to be noted that earlier, SAPM on Health – Dr Faisal Sultan had announced that Pakistan will receive 1.55 million COVID-19 vaccine doses by June 20th, another 2.5 million doses by June 22nd and further two to three million COVID-19 vaccine doses between June 23rd to 30th.
The country will also receive 400,000 locally made PakVac (Cansino) COVID-19 vaccine doses during this time period.
Pakistan is facing an acute shortage of COVID-19 vaccines due to interruptions in international supply chain and issues with domestic distribution network. The situation has further been exacerbated by an exponential increase in vaccine demand as people have flocked to vaccination centers across the country in recent days.
The development comes as Economic Coordination Committee (ECC) on June 9th earlier this month, had approved the allocation if US$ 1 billion for the procurement of COVID-19 vaccines.
Currently, a total of six COVID-19 vaccines namely Sinopharm, CansinoBio, Sputnik V, Oxford AstraZeneca, Pfizer and Sinovac are being used to carryout nation-wide inoculation drive against the novel virus.
