Pakistan gets first batch of 500,000 COVID vaccine doses from China

A view of the special Pakistan Air Force plane that left for China on Sunday to bring back the first batch of vaccine doses

Dawn.com: A special plane of the Pakistan Air Force (PAF) left for China yesterday to bring back the first batch of the 500,000 vaccine doses that China had promised to provide to Pakistan earlier this month, according to a statement by the National Command and Operation Centre (NCOC).

The NCOC has already decided upon a ‘comprehensive strategy’ for the administration of the coronavirus vaccines and other administrative measures.

“All necessary measures have been put in place for vaccine storage at Islamabad and [transportation] of vaccine to various federating units particularly to Sindh and Balochistan through air,” the statement said.

It added that a central control cell has been established at the NCOC while cells have also been set up at provincial and district levels for the vaccination drive.

A day earlier, Minister for Planning, Development and Special Initiatives Asad Umar said that the Chinese vaccine would be sufficient for 250,000 healthcare workers as two doses were required for every person.

“As 400,000 healthcare workers have registered themselves, it has therefore been decided that instead of considering the population of the federating units, the number of registered healthcare workers would be considered before dispatching the vaccine. In this way, the vaccine can be dispatched for 30pc, 40pc or 50pc of the registered healthcare workers,” he said.

The Minister said it would take two to three weeks to vaccinate healthcare workers and was hopeful that the new consignment would arrive before its utilisation.

The vaccine was developed by the Beijing Institute of Biological Products, a subsidiary of State-owned conglomerate Sinopharm. The company announced last month that preliminary data from last-stage trials had shown it to be 79.3% effective.