Special plane to fetch first vaccine batch from China today

Ag APP

ISLAMABAD: Pakistan is sending a special plane to China today (Sunday) to retrieve the first batch of a coronavirus vaccine, a little over a week after Foreign Minister Shah Mehmood Qureshi announced Beijing would be gifting 500,000 doses of the jab to the country.

The arrangements were discussed during a National Command and Operation Centre (NCOC) meeting on Saturday. The NCOC’s session deliberated at length about the vaccine administration strategy across the country, administrative measures and in particular the supply of initial batch of the Covid vaccine.

The forum was informed that all necessary measures were put in place for vaccine storage at the capital and the supply of vaccine to various federating units, particularly to Sindh and Balochistan through air. A vaccine nerve centre was established at the NCOC with provincial and district-level vaccine administration, coordination centres and adult vaccination centres linked together in a close liaison, the NCOC said in a statement.

On January 21, foreign minister Qureshi said China would be gifting half-a-million doses to Pakistan after the country authorised emergency use of the SinoPharm vaccine. Qureshi had said his Chinese counterpart Wang Yi assured him that Pakistan’s required 1.2 million doses would be fulfilled by the end of February.

The development came as the country saw another 2,179 infections in a 24-hour-period, returning daily cases above 2,000 after 10 days. Active Covid-19 cases stood at 33,439. Deaths in the same period were 65, according to NCOC data. Thirty-six of the victims died on ventilators. Some 2,566 corona patients were admitted in hospitals across the country, 296 of whom were on ventilators. A total of 543,214 cases were detected since the pandemic began, while the death toll stood at 11,623.

Meanwhile, plans to reopen all primary schools and universities by February 1 remained unchanged, Minister for Federal Education Shafqat Mahmood said, citing “too much loss” on the education front due to the pandemic. He said this while talking to the media during his visit to Mir Masoom Shah Minar a Mughal era monument. Mehmood said the country has witnessed “too much loss of education” due to Covid-19 adding: “all the primary schools and universities will reopen from February 1.”