Pakistan will be receiving second batch of Chinese origin COVID-19 vaccine comprising of 500,000 doses in near future.
As per details, Pakistan is set to receive 500,000 COVID-19 vaccine doses from China’s state-run pharmaceutical company Sinopharm. Dong Wnli – press attaché at Chinese Embassy in Islamabad, has said that Pakistan and Chinese governments are in the process of finalizing the details pertaining to the delivery of second batch of Chinese COVID-19 vaccine to Pakistan.
Meanwhile Bao Zhont – another Chinese official in the political section, has also confirmed the news regarding delivery of another 500,000 vaccine doses.
Expressing his views on the news, Sajid Shah – spokesperson for Ministry of National Health, has said that the announcement regarding second batch of Chinese coronavirus vaccine will be soon be made public.
The development comes as earlier, Foreign Minister Shah Mahmood Qureshi while speaking at 70th anniversary celebration of Pak-China ties had apprised that China will be ‘gifting’ a second batch of COVID-19 vaccines to Pakistan.
It is pertinent to know that Pakistan launched nationwide COVID-19 vaccination process 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.
Furthermore, Pakistan is set to receive 10 million doses of COVID-19 vaccine under ‘COVAX’ initiative of World Health Organization (WHO). COVAX initiative will see a total of 238.2 million vaccine doses being distributed among various countries across the world.
Pakistan will receive 14,640,000 COVID-19 vaccine doses; Indonesia – 11,704,800 doses; Bangladesh – 10,908,000 doses; Brazil – 9,122,400 doses and Nigeria will receive 13,656,000 doses.
A total of 142 countries around the world are expected to benefit from WHO’s COVAX programme.