Pakistan secures 17 million doses of India-made vaccines

As per The Express Tribune report, out of the 17 million indicative doses received, 35-40 per cent or 6 to 6.8 million doses will be available within the first quarter of the current year.

Special Assistant to Prime Minister on Health Dr Faisal Sultan tweeted on Saturday night: "Happy to share that in addition to the 500,000 doses of Sinopharm, almost 7 million does of AstraZeneca to be made available in Q1 and given to the public free of cost! Pakistan’s vaccine drive starts next week, beginning with frontline healthcare workers."

Minister for Planning, Development and Special Initiatives Asad Umar, who heads the National Command and Operations Centre (NCOC) to fight coronavirus pandemic, shared: "Good news on covid vaccine front. Recieved letter from Covax of indicative supply of up to 17 million doses of AstraZeneca in 1st half 2021. About 6 million will be recieved by March with delivery starting in Feb. We signed with Covax nearly 8 months back to ensure availability."

On January 28, the federal government gave the green light for three Covid-19 vaccines including Russia’s Sputnik-V, China’s Sinopharm and UK’s Oxford-AstraZeneca for emergency use in the country for which a step-by-step guide was also issued, reports The Express Tribune.

Astra Zeneca’s Covishield  doses have been made in India.

India's vaccine diplomacy seems to be shining as the country is giving millions of doses of COVID-19 vaccine to South Asian nations for the past few days, promising to help its neighbours, among others, at a time when the disease continues to grip the region. Now it is spreading beyond the regional boundaries as well.

MEA spokesperson Anurag Srivastava last month said: "Keeping in view the domestic requirements of the phased rollout, India will continue to supply COVID-19 vaccines to partner countries over the coming weeks and months in a phased manner. It will ensure that domestic manufacturers will have adequate stocks to meet domestic requirements while supplying abroad."

He said there is interest in many countries in accessing vaccines from India which is the global hub for vaccine production.

"In so far as these requests for vaccines from India, you would recall that the Prime Minister has already stated that India’s vaccine production and delivery capacity would be used for the benefit of all humanity in fighting this crisis," he said.