Pakistan to receive 1mn more COVID-19 vaccine doses in coming days: SAPM Faisal

ISLAMABAD: Special Assistant to Prime Minister (SAPM) Dr. Faisal Sultan on Sunday said that Pakistan will receive another batch of 1 million COVID-19 vaccine doses from China next week, ARY News reported.

While speaking in the ARY News program ‘Sawal Ye Hai’, Faisal Sultan said that vaccines imported by the private sector will also be available in the market in the coming days.

“Country will receive 1 million doses of Sinopharm and CanSino vaccines from China within a few days,” he said, adding that several million additional doses are in the pipeline will be delivered in April.

He said that the third Covid wave is dangerous and mostly spreading in nine cities of the country. “Lahore, Peshawar, Islamabad are cities where Covid-19 spreading sharply.”

Dr Faisal Sultan said that violation of Covid-related SOPs in wedding ceremonies become the main reason for a sharp increase in Covid cases in the country.

Pakistan is currently vaccinating frontline healthcare workers and senior citizens using Sinopharm doses donated by China.

According to latest statistics by the National Command and Operation Center, 57 more deaths and 4767 new cases of Coronavirus were reported across the country during the last twenty-four hours.

The death toll due to Covid-19 pandemic has now mounted to 14,215 while 595,929 patients have fully recovered from the disease so far.

Prime Minister Imran Khan on Sunday once again ruled the closure of businesses and other economic activities in the country amid the third Covid-19 wave.

“We are not in a position to impose another country-wide lockdown, but we can take precautions by wearing masks and following government-set SOPs,” said the premier in a video message.

PM Khan said that the third wave of coronavirus was more lethal as compared to the previous two waves. He said the third wave in Pakistan is the spread of the UK strain as the new strain of the COVID-19 was more transmissible than the original.