Staff Report
ISLAMABAD: Pakistan has increased its funds allocated for purchasing Covid-19 vaccine to $250 million and signed non-disclosure agreements with various multinational companies. Under the agreement, the recipient country will not make details of the vaccine public.
Earlier, the government had set aside $150m for the vaccine. Talking to reporters, Parliamentary Secretary on National Health Services (NHS) Dr Nausheen Hamid said allocation for vaccine purchase had been enhanced to $250 million.
“We will sign a purchase agreement with more than one company to ensure that we get a vaccine (in case any of the available vaccine fails). Russia had also offered us its vaccine recently. However, we are looking into its safety and efficacy as public health is our top priority,” she said. When asked when the vaccine will be available, Dr Nausheen Hamid said it was hoped that the delivery of the vaccine would start by the end of the first quarter of next year.
“However, we are not going to give the vaccine to everyone. According to our priority list, in the first phase, healthcare workers attending to Covid-19 patients and people over 65 years will be vaccinated. In the second phase the remaining healthcare workers and people over 60 years of age will get preference. Moreover GAVI has also pledged to provide vaccine for 20pc population which comes to 450 million people,” she said.
