Pakistan to start COVID vaccination next week
China's Sinopharm vaccine
Pakistan will launch its COVID vaccination drive next week, said a government minister on Wednesday. Frontline health workers will be vaccinated first.
"God willing, the vaccination of frontline health workers will start next week," Asad Umar, who oversees Pakistan's efforts to stem the coronavirus pandemic, said in a tweet.
China has pledged a donation of 500,000 doses of COVID vaccines made by Sinopharm. Reuters mentioned government sources and said that first batch would be flown in on Saturday.
Pakistan has so far approved two vaccines for emergency use, one made by China National Pharmaceutical Group (SinoPharm) and the other by AstraZeneca.
Russia's Sputnik V vaccine is also likely to get similar approval, officials say, adding that the authorisations will be reviewed quarterly with regard to safety, efficacy and quality.
Pakistan's Health Minister Faisal Sultan has said Pakistan could get "in the range of tens of millions" of vaccine doses under an agreement with China's Cansino Biologics Inc.
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Cansino's Ad5-nCoV vaccine candidate is nearing completion of Phase III clinical trials in Pakistan, and preliminary results may be available by mid-February, Sultan said.
"There's going to be an accumulation of vaccines, a consortium available, there’s going to be Chinese vaccines, there's going to be AstraZeneca," said Dr Ghazna Khalid. She is the member of the government task force on COVID-19.
(With Reuters inputs)