Another 500,000 doses of Covid-19 vaccine arrive from China

Another batch of coronavirus vaccine donated by China arrived in Pakistan on Wednesday.

The vaccine batch, which consists of 500,000 doses has been shifted to a warehouse. The vaccine company Sinopharm will provide the vaccine to Pakistan in phases.

Frontline health workers and elderly people will get inoculated on priority basis.

Pakistan expressed its thanks to the Chinese government for speedy delivery of coronavirus vaccine.

Officials confirmed that another batch of China’s Sinopharm vaccine has arrived on Wednesday which will be given to elderly population (60 & above) as well as the critical patients of Covid-19.

Mass vaccination centers have been set up across Pakistan just ahead of the arrival of 500,000 doses of Sinopharm.

“We have set up these centers in Islamabad, Multan, Lahore, Karachi and Peshawar. More will be established across other cities,” a senior official dealing with the vaccine program project in Pakistan told Gwadar Pro.

Pakistan has signed a deal with Beijing Institute of Biological Products for the delivery of Sinopharm vaccine that aims to fight against Covid-19.

Pakistan will purchase 1.2 million doses of coronavirus vaccine from Chinese manufacturer Sinopharm, Federal Minister for Science and Technology Fawad Chaudhry had confirmed earlier.

“The Cabinet Committee has decided to initially purchase 1.2 million doses of the vaccine from the Chinese company Sinopharm, which will be provided free of cost to frontline workers in the first quarter of 2021,” Fawad had said.

The federal health ministry had recently launched a registration drive across the country in collaboration with National Database Registration Authority (NADRA) advising the masses to register to have jabs of vaccine.

“Vaccine is being administered to people who have registered online to get free dose of vaccine. The vaccination will continue until the whole population gets jabs of vaccine,” a spokesperson of health ministry said.

Early this week, authorities announced to administer jabs of vaccine to people aged 70 & above at their door step.

“We have advised people aged 70 & above to stay home as we have taken steps to administer jabs of vaccine to them at their door step as per directives given by Prime Minister Imran Khan,” a spokesman of the health ministry said.

On March 5, 2021, Pakistan approved the emergency use of Sinopharm Covid-19 vaccine for people over 60 years of age, a statement by National Command and Operation Centre (NCOC) said.

Since then, a large number people in Pakistan, mostly frontline health workers, have been administered doses of Sinopharm vaccine. The vaccine has had great results so far, Pakistani authorities said.

Meanwhile, Pakistani authorities have confirmed they have placed an order to purchase single-dose Chinese vaccine Ad5-nCoV vaccine (Cansino Bio) for COVID-19 and its first batch is expected to be delivered to Pakistan shortly.

According to officials of National Health Services, Regulation and Coordination (NHS, R&C) the single-dose Chinese vaccine could be administered to people of all ages as it was found effective among people from 18 to 80 plus years of age during trials in Pakistan and other countries of the world.

Moreover, Federal Minister for Planning and Development and head of the NCOC Asad Umar said that highest daily vaccination rate was achieved on previous day (Tuesday) after over 41,000 people were inoculated.

The federal minister, in a tweet, said that out of the total vaccinations on Tuesday, 28,424 shots were given to senior citizens. He also urged public to encourage everyone who is over 70 years old to register for the vaccination drive.

On the other hand, Sindh Health Minister Azra Pechuho on Wednesday stressed that the Covid-19 vaccine has no side effects after reporting that people are avoiding getting vaccinated due to various rumours around the vaccine.

“The health workers were also avoiding the vaccine,” Pechuho said. “We have made the vaccination centres for coronavirus vaccine,” she added.

“The private hospitals have also been given permission for administering vaccine”, Azra Pechuho said.

Pakistan suffering the brunt of the third wave of Covid-19 resulting spike in the number of cases and deaths in the country, especially in Punjab, the largest province of the country.

Pakistan recorded 61 more coronavirus-related deaths in the past 24 hours, taking the overall death toll to 13,656 on Wednesday.

According to the latest statistics of the NCOC, Covid-19 claimed 61 more lives and 2,351 fresh infections were reported during the said period.

The total count of active cases is 22,792.

In the past 24 hours, as many as 2,853 patients recovered from the virus and 1,978 patients were still in critical condition, including 83 new cases.

According to the NCOC, with the fresh inclusion of the infections in the country the national tally of cases stood at 612,315.

A total of 38,799 tests were conducted across the country during this period. Overall 575,867 people have recovered from the deadly disease so far while 9,603,865 samples have been tested thus far.

Earlier in the day, it emerged that three major hospitals within the provincial capital, Lahore, reported that they no longer had a supply of vaccine to provide to patients due to the high influx of people who had already come in to receive a dose.

Mayo Hospital, Services Hospital and Jinnah Hospital were the healthcare centres where the vaccine had run short.

The vaccines reportedly ran out a day earlier, and the management of the hospital said that they could not even provide jabs to the frontline healthcare workers that were coming in.

The management maintained that the vaccines finished as they had reached the maximum capacity, adding that they expected more vaccines to arrive on Wednesday night.