Pakistan receives another large COVID-19 vaccine shipment from China

ISLAMABAD: Pakistan on Sunday received another consignment of COVID-19 vaccine from China comprising of 1.2 million doses, ARY News reported, citing sources.

The plane carrying the vaccine doses which have been purchased by Pakistan from China landed at Islamabad airport on Sunday evening.

The Ministry of Health received a batch of 1,000,000 doses of the SinoVac vaccine and 200,000 doses of the CanSino vaccine procured from China.

The sources further shared that another batch of two million COVID vaccine-SinoVac will reach Islamabad on May 21.

The federal government has expedited the imports of COVID-19 vaccines after the virus spread intensifies in the country.

In a bid to expedite the vaccination process in the country, Pakistan has signed contracts for the purchase of the COVID vaccine with several companies including Chinese firms.

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Pakistan is already vaccinating its population over 30-years and older citizens.

Earlier on May 9, the National Command and Operation Centre (NCOC) had announced that Pakistan received nearly 12 million doses of corona vaccine so far.

The country has received overall 11.9 mln doses of China’s Sinopharm, Sinovac and CanSino COVID-19 vaccines and AstraZeneca from the COVAX, the National Command and Operation Centre (NCOC) said in its statement.

COVAX had provided 1.23 mln vaccine doses of Oxford University’s AstraZeneca, the NCOC further said.

It is to be mentioned here that Pakistan will also prepare a Chinese coronavirus vaccine locally from this month.