-PIA earlier brought two million doses of the Vaccine to Pakistan
-Pakistan has so far received over 13 million doses of COVID Vaccine
By Minahil Makhdoom
ISLAMABAD: Pakistan International Airlines (PIA)’s special flight PK 6852 on Sunday transported a batch of 500,000 doses of Sinovac vaccine from the Beijing Capital International Airport to Islamabad.
Last Sunday, too, a special flight — PK 6853 — had transported a consignment of two million doses of Sinovac vaccine procured from China to fight the ongoing wave of COVID-19 in Pakistan, Qadir Bux Sangi, PIA Country Manager for China told media. Pakistan has so far received over 13 million doses of COVID-19 vaccines including Sinopharm, Sinovac and CanSino procured from China and others obtained through the global COVAX vaccine-sharing programme.
The private sector has imported nearly 50,000 doses of Russia’s Sputnik-V vaccine.A Chinese foreign ministry spokesperson in a statement said that China has always attached great importance to Pakistan’s demand for vaccines to help fight the pandemic.
“Chinese vaccines manufacturers have cooperated with Pakistan in the development and production of vaccines from very beginning and will continue to export vaccines to Pakistan,” he added. China and Pakistan are all-weather strategic cooperative partners, he said, adding, that since the outbreak of COVID-19, China and Pakistan have worked together to help each other and achieve positive results. Islamabad received the first COVID-19 vaccine consignment after a military aircraft transported it from Beijing on February 1 this year.
Pakistani health authorities had then launched a nationwide vaccination drive with around a million doses of Sinopharm vaccine donated by China, starting with older people and frontline healthcare workers.
The drive began with a focus on the oldest people of the population, over the age of 80, and slowly expanded to accommodate more age groups.
Now vaccine registration is open to all people over 19.
Initially, the government had to deal with vaccination hesitancy and a shortage of vaccine supplies and had limited shots for people aged 30 or over.
