Pakistan receives gift of 2 million Covid vaccines from China

Gwadar Pro

Islamabad: Pakistan has received the fresh batch of two million doses of anti-Covid Sinopharm vaccines gifted by China.

In the next few days, Pakistan will also receive another batch of 1.5 million purchased from Chinese company CanSino.

Three special planes of Pakistan International Airlines (PIA) airlifted the new batch of two million doses of Sinopharm vaccines from Beijing, the PIA announced here.

Three flights of the national flag carrier, PK-6856, PK-6857, and PK-6858 transported consignments of two million doses of the Chinese-made Sinopharm vaccines to Pakistan from China.

Pakistan has been using mainly Chinese vaccines – including Sinopharm and Sinovac – besides other vaccines.

The government has run a massive vaccination drive across the country to achieve the target of providing 70 million doses of vaccines aimed at fighting the Covid-19 pandemic.

The health authorities had launched a nationwide vaccination drive with around a million doses of Sinopharm vaccine donated by China, starting with older people and frontline healthcare workers, in March this year.

The drive began with a focus on the oldest people in the community, generally over the age of 80 but now the vaccine is being administered to people aged over 18 years.

Islamabad received the first COVID-19 vaccine consignment after a military aircraft transported it from Beijing on February 01, this year.

China will provide a total of 2 billion doses of COVID-19 vaccines to the world this year, in the latest effort to honor its commitment to making vaccines a global public good by ensuring vaccine accessibility and affordability.

China will also donate $100 million to the COVAX global vaccine initiative for the distribution of vaccines to developing countries.