ISLAMABAD: Three special aircraft of Pakistan International Airlines (PIA) carrying a million shots of Sinopharm Covid-19 vaccine doses from China on Thursday will arrive in Islamabad later today.
The Boeing 777 airplanes were sent to Beijing on Tuesday to airlift the consignment. The first flight landed in Islamabad this morning, the second will reach in the afternoon while the third plane is expected to return by midnight.
“Using three Boeing aircraft for transportation is aimed at accelerating the delivery of vaccines,” Arab News quoted PIA spokesperson Abdullah Hafeez Niazi as saying.
The government launched the nationwide Covid-19 vaccination for the general public, starting with older people, in March. The drive began with a focus on the oldest people in the community, generally over the age of 80.
The vaccination of people aged 50 and above began on April 21. The National Command and Operation Centre (NCOC) had started a registration drive for people in the age group on March 30.
Last week, Minister of State for Health Dr Faisal Sultan announced that by the end of June, the government would have a stock of 17 million coronavirus vaccine jabs but stopped short of identifying the producer.
“The challenge [for the government] is to deploy and use them. The number of people who have registered is in the hundreds of thousands, not millions, yet we need to vaccinate 40 to 50 million by the end of this year,” he said in an interview.
Pakistan has also purchased some 30 million doses of vaccines from China.
