Pakistan’s ambassador to China – Moin Ul Haque on Wednesday (today), reassured China’s CanSino Biologics of the provision of essential regulatory measures for its COVID-19 vaccine.
During his visit to CanSino Biologics headquarters in China’s Trianjin province, Ambassador Moin Ul Haque met with company’s CEO Yu Xuefeng and reassured that Pakistan will ensure the provision of all necessary measures required for regulatory compliance pertaining to the administration of coronavirus vaccine as its trials are in final phase.
Pierre Armand Morgon – Senior Vice President of CanSino International also attended the meeting via video link.
The development comes as earlier; it was reported that around 13,000 people have already volunteered to participate in the vaccine’s trial phase in Pakistan.
CanSino had started its COVID-19 vaccine trials in Pakistan in September 2020 last year. The trial was overlooked by Dr Ejaz Khan – Chairman Infection Control at Shifa Hospital Islamabad.
Earlier, Dr Faisal Sultan – Special Assistant to Prime Minister (SAPM) on Health, had said that Pakistan will get Chinese COVID-19 vaccine by February next month.
In a statement, Dr Faisal Sultan noted that Pakistan will get its first batch of Chinese origin COVID-19 vaccine in ‘early’ February next month.
The vaccine will be provided by China’s Sinopharm as Pakistan intends to procure 1.2 million COVID-19 vaccine doses to tackle second coronavirus wave in the country.
We hope to be able to get vaccine doses from Sinopharm in the first quarter of this year, hopefully starting in early February, Dr Faisal Sultan was quoted saying.
The initial 1.1 million COVID-19 vaccine doses will only cater to the first phase of mass inoculation and will primarily focus on healthcare workers.