'PakVac': Pakistan rolls out locally-made COVID-19 vaccine

ISLAMABAD: Pakistan has formally launched its locally manufactured PakVac COVID-19 vaccine today amid the ongoing global efforts to contain the spread of coronavirus pandemic, ARY News reported on Tuesday.

The National Command and Operation Centre (NCOC) head Asad Umar and Special Assistant to Prime Minister on Health Dr Faisal Sultan have addressed an event related to the launching of the locally-made PakVac COVID-19 vaccine.

Asad Umar said the coronavirus pandemic has become a challenge for the whole world and today’s top demand is COVID-19 vaccines. He said the situation of the pandemic in Pakistan was quite better by the grace of Allah Almighty as compared with the other countries. Umar said that neither any disease will care about any boundaries nor it discriminates any human’s family and religion.

“We are now going to take [important] decisions to resolve the issues. We have to immediately take some steps for hospitals [across the country]. The federal government has included the mega health project in the public sector development programme (PSDP). I can also express the sentiments of the nation.”

Read: Pakistan mulls local production of Sputnik V Covid-19 vaccine

“The nation is proud of the teams of NIH [National Institute of Health]. In our region, India faces an acute shortage of oxygen. The government is getting lessons from its shortcomings. The federal budget is now increased and InshaAllah, all things will get improved more and more.”

“The Centre is spending Rs60 billion to improve the hospitals across Pakistan. COVID-19 vaccine is the top demand these days across the world. At this time, seven institutions are working in NIH and the NCOC is going ahead with the cooperation of the provinces.”

SAPM Dr Faisal Sultan said, “We always get chances to bring improvements in our system after every challenge. We have a strong friendship bond with China and the Chinese authorities have proved it amid the pandemic crisis.”

“We will see complete production of COVID-19 vaccine (PakVac) in Pakistan by the next few years,” he announced.

NIH facility inaugurated today for the formulation, fill and finish of the CanSino-Bio vaccine. Dr Aamer Ikram and his team have done a great job! This is a milestone in the journey to achieve to self-reliance pic.twitter.com/pNeCTAC1RW

— Faisal Sultan (@fslsltn) June 1, 2021

Earlier, the health ministry had said in a statement that the first batch of bulk CanSino vaccine was being processed at the National Institute of Health’s (NIH) plant, which was set up for this purpose last month.

The National Control Lab for Biologicals of the DRAP will examine the vaccine and give a final approval regarding its use in the coming days.

The National Institute of Health would be able to produce three million doses per month which would significantly reduce the country’s dependence on other countries.