Frontline workers to get Covid vaccines in first quarter of 2021: Fawad

ISLAMABAD: Federal Minister for Science and Technology Fawad Chaudhry has said that frontline workers will get COVID-19 vaccine free of cost in the first quarter of 2021, ARY News reported on Thursday.

Fawad Chaudhry said in a Twitter message that the cabinet committee had decided to procure 1.2 million COVID-19 vaccines from a Chinese company Sinopharm. He added that frontline workers will be given the vaccines free of cost in the first quarter of next year.

The federal minister said that the private sector had also been permitted to import globally approved vaccines.

کابینہ کمیٹی نے فیصلہ کیا ہے کہ ابتدائ طور پر چین کی کمپنی سائنوفارم سے ویکسین کی بارہ لاکھ Doses خریدی جائیں گی جو 2021 کی پہلی سہ ماہی میں فرنٹ لائن ورکرز کو مفت مہیا کی جائیں گی، پرائیویٹ سیکٹر اگر کوئ اور بینالاقوامی طور پر منظور شدہ ویکسین امپورٹ کرنا چاہےتو وہ بھی کرسکتا ہے

— Ch Fawad Hussain (@fawadchaudhry) December 31, 2020

In a major development earlier on Wednesday, the government had decided to purchase coronavirus vaccine from brotherly country China.

Read: China gives its first COVID-19 vaccine approval to Sinopharm

It had been decided during a meeting of the special committee on procurement of COVDI-19 vaccine chaired by the Federal Minister for Planning and National Command and Operations Centre (NCOC) chief Asad Umar in Islamabad today.

Taking to the Twitter, Asad Umar had announced that the cabinet had given nod to the procurement of more than one million coronavirus doses which will cover all frontline health workers.

“Target is to deploy these vaccines within 1st quarter of 2021,” he added

Federal Minister for Science and Technology Fawad Chaudhry, Minister of Industries and Production Hammad Azhar,  Special Assistant on National Health Services Dr. Faisal Sultan and others were present in the meeting.