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New Delhi: India will supply as many as 4.5 crore Covid-19 vaccines to Pakistan in the month of March, Federal Secretary National Health Services, Regulation and Coordination Aamir Ashraf Khawaja on Thursday informed the Public Accounts Committee (PAC).
While sharing the information, a total of 45 million doses of vaccine would be received under an agreement with Vaccine alliance Gavi and out of total 16m would be received till June this year.
“Gavi is a public-private partnership that helps provide vaccines to developing countries. It had signed an agreement with Pakistan to provide COVID-19 vaccine in September 2020,” Khawaja informed.
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He also said it was expected earlier that the vaccine would arrive from Gavi in the first week of March, however, it had been little delayed and now it was expected within next few weeks. Khawaja informed that Pakistan would receive vaccine manufactured by the Serum Institute of India (SII).
India has so far supplied Covid-19 vaccine to over 15 countries and around 25 are expected to get the doses soon. While many nations received Indian-manufactured vaccine on grant basis, some paid the price set by the Indian government.
In terms of Covid-19 cases in Pakista, the country on Monday reported 1,592 new cases, taking the national tally to 5,92,100. Another 22 patients died during this period, taking the total number of fatalities to 13,227.
The country will start COVID-19 vaccination drive for those aged 60 and above from March 10, the government announced on Sunday amid surge in coronavirus cases in the country.
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The Drug Regulatory Authority of Pakistan on March 4 approved the use of the Chinese COVID-19 vaccine Sinopharm for people over 60 years of age, reversing an earlier decision not to use it for this age group. So far, four vaccines -Sinophram (China), Oxford-AstraZeneca (UK), Sputnik-V (Russia) and Cansino Bio (China) have been registered in the country.
The Pakistan government earlier said that it is not planning to buy vaccines anytime soon as it aims to tackle the COVID-19 challenge through herd immunity and donated vaccines from friendly countries like China.
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