China to gift half million dosages of Sinopharm immunization to Pakistan

Overview

• Post By : Kumar Jeetendra


• Source: Reuters


• Date: 21 Jan,2021

Pakistan’s Foreign Minister Shah Mehmood Qureshi said on Thursday that China has agreed to supply half a million doses of the Chinese Sinopharm COVID-19 free of cost to Pakistan by January 31.

“They’ve said send your aircraft and airlift this vaccine immediately. So this is a happy bit of news for us, and we will hopefully be successful in protecting ourselves with this vaccine,” Qureshi said in a press conference in Islamabad.

Pakistani regulators approved the Sinopharm vaccine for emergency use on Monday, two days after AstraZeneca’s vaccine developed with Oxford University was also approved.

“I thanked them and told them we want more than that, and in the future we will need 1.1 million doses, and they reassured us and said by the end of February we aim to fulfill this requirement for you too,” Qureshi added.

Qureshi said he had also raised the possibility of jointly manufacturing vaccines with China.

Pakistan is also nearing completion of a phase three trial of another Chinese vaccine from Cansino Biologics Inc..

Some 17,500 people had registered in the trial so far, and first results are available in the beginning of February, health minister Faisal Sultan said at a media conference on Wednesday.

Sultan stated if the Cansino vaccine proved effective Pakistan could look to secure 20 million doses.

Sultan said Pakistani officials had also been meeting with UK officials for discussions on procuring vaccines from there.

Pakistan is hoping to eventually vaccinate at least 70 percent of its adult population to achieve herd immunity, Sultan said.

The country’s existing Expanded Programme on Immunization, which manages a range of vaccines including polio, has been strengthened to help distribute the coronavirus vaccine.