Travelers in distress after Saudi govt wants COVID shots of specified vaccine: PMA   

KARACHI: Secretary General of the Pakistan Medical Association (PMA) Dr Qaiser Sajjad on Tuesday urged the Saudi authorities to allow passengers traveling to the Kingdom after getting a COVID jab of Sinopharm, ARY NEWS reported.

“People are in distress to know that the government in Saudi Arabia has asked travelers to get COVID shots of specified vaccines,” he said adding that Sinopharm has been declared a better vaccine by the World Health Organization (WHO).

Dr Qaiser Sajjad said that people had to go abroad for education and medical purposes and if a certain vaccine is being approved for traveling then it would cause problems.

Special Assistant to the PM on Religious Harmony Allama Tahir Ashrafi also said on Monday that the Government of Pakistan is in contact with Saudi officials over the issue of inclusion of Chinese Covid-19 vaccines including Sinopharm and Sinovac being administered to Pakistanis in the Kingdom’s list of approved vaccines for pilgrims.

He said the World Health Organisation (WHO) also approved our vaccine.

It is pertinent to mention here that although the country has received 1.2 million doses of Astra Zeneca under a COVAX programme recently, which is accepted as a COVID vaccine in Saudi Arabia, however, a majority of the doses received by the country are Chinese vaccines.

Even the country with the help of the Chinese experts has locally produced the first batch of China’s single-dose Covid-19 vaccine Cansino, which would be available for administration by the end of the ongoing month.

“Congratulations to the NIH Pak team and its leadership for successful fill/finish (from concentrate) of the Cansino vaccine with the help of Cansino Bio Inc,” SAPM on Health Dr Faisal Sultan said.

“The product has passed the rigorous internal QA testing. An imp step to help in our vaccine supply line,” he added.