Pakistan to receive 5.6m Covid-19 vaccine doses by end of March: NCOC

ISLAMABAD: The National Command and Operation Centre (NCOC) on Saturday announced that Pakistan will receive at least 5.6 million doses of Covid vaccine by the end of next month, ARY News reported.

COVID-19 Vaccines Global Access (COVAX) will provide 22.7 million doses of Covid vaccines to Pakistan in three phases, said NCOC, adding that first batch of coronavirus vaccines will arrive in Pakistan in first week of March.

The NCOC in a statement said that out of 22.7 million doses, the country will get 5.6 million vaccine doses in the month of March.

Pakistan to receive 2.8 million doses of AstraZeneca’s coronavirus vaccine in the first week of March as the first batch of a donation from the international COVAX programme, said the NCOC.

Read More: Provinces provided second batch of COVID-19 vaccine: NCOC

The consignment will be used in a public vaccination programme for people aged over 60.

Pakistan this month started the vaccination drive with 500,000 doses of Sinopharm’s vaccine donated by long-time ally China.

Overall 3,14,500 COVID-19 vaccine shots have been provided to various parts of Pakistan.

The second consignment of the coronavirus vaccine has been provided to provinces, as vaccination drive for health workers continuing across the country, the NCOC said in a statement.

Punjab has been provided overall 1,18,000 vaccine shots, while Sindh has been given 1,21,000 vaccine jabs, the NCOC said in its statement.

Moreover, Khyber Pakhtunkhwa has been supplied 28,000 vaccines, Balochistan 16,000, Islamabad 15,500, Azad Kashmir 11,000 and Gilgit-Baltistan region 5,000 vaccines till now, according to the NCOC.

Pakistan Covid cases

Pakistan has recorded 36 more coronavirus-related deaths in past 24 hours, surging the overall death toll to 12,563.

According to the latest statistics of the National Command and Operation Centre (NCOC), the COVID-19 has claimed 36 more lives and 1,340 fresh infections were reported.

The total count of active cases is 24,081.

In the past 24 hours, as many as 1,362 patients have recovered from the virus in a day and 1,604 patients are still in critical condition.

According to the National Command and Operation Centre (NCOC), with fresh inclusion of the infections in the country the national tally of cases now currently stands at 569,846.