Another batch of 528,000 COVID vaccines brought from China

ISLAMABAD: A Pakistan International Airlines (PIA) plane on Saturday brought another batch of 528,000 COVID vaccines from China as the country has expedited its vaccination process witnessing over 1 million COVID jabs in a day, ARY NEWS reported.

According to sources, the vaccines brought from China would be shifted to a warehouse of the federal Expanded Programme on Immunization (EPI).

The sources said that overall 1.32 million doses of Sinopharm have been brought in the last 24 hours to Pakistan and would be distributed among the provinces as per their needs.

“792,000 Sinopharm doses has arrived in Pakistan yesterday while another 680,000 doses of the vaccine will reach Pakistan tomorrow,” they said adding that Pakistan has purchased two million doses of Sinopharm from a Chinese company.

Earlier on Friday, as many as 64,000 more doses of Pfizer vaccine had reached Pakistan.

The American vaccine had arrived in Islamabad onboard a foreign airline’s flight, the sources said.

Pakistan had signed an agreement with Pfizer Inc for procurement of 13 million doses of the vaccine. 100,000 doses of the vaccine had arrived in Islamabad last month.

The American vaccine would be administered to people with chronic diseases and weak immunity. People travelling abroad will also get the Pfizer shot.

It is worth mentioning that the Government of Pakistan aims to vaccinate as many as 80 million citizens against the coronavirus by December-end. The arrival of more doses of Covid-19 vaccines will help the country ramp up vaccination.