Pakistan permits use of British COVID-19 vaccine: sources

ISLAMABAD: Pakistan has granted permission to use Oxford-AstraZeneca Covid-19 vaccine (AZD1222) in emergency situation, citing sources, ARY News reported on Saturday.

The Drug Regulatory Authority of Pakistan (DRAP) has given the approval for urgent-use of the British COVID-19 vaccine, sources told ARY News.

AstraZeneca has been a British-Sweden joint multinational pharma company, which has produced the vaccine in collaboration with Oxford University.

Read: Britain approves AstraZeneca/Oxford COVID-19 vaccine

The vaccine, approved by the British Medicine and Healthcare Products Regulatory Authority, is said to be effective for people of all age groups and could be stored in home refrigerators.

After the approval of the British vaccine from the relevant authority, AZD1222 can be imported in Pakistan. A Karachi-based pharmaceutical company will import the British vaccine, whereas, the price of vaccine for the private sector will be fixed by the government.

Earlier on Thursday, it emerged that AstraZeneca had also sought approval for its vaccine from Pakistan after China’s Sinopharm.

Read: Federal cabinet exempts purchases of Covid vaccines from PPRA rules

AstraZeneca had applied for registration to the Drug Regulatory Authority of Pakistan (DRAP) through a Pakistani pharmaceutical company besides submitting data of the clinical trials of the vaccine.

It may be noted that Pakistan had announced to buy 1.2 million doses of the corona vaccine from Sinopharm, a state-run Chinese firm, which is developing two COVID-19 vaccines.