Pakistan urges KSA to approve Chinese vaccines

ISLAMABAD: Pakistan has requested Saudi Arabia to include Chinese vaccines to its list of approved COVID-19 shots for visitors traveling to the kingdom to perform Hajj and Umrah, Foreign Office spokesperson Zahid Hafeez Chaudhry said on Saturday.

"Pakistan has taken up with the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia the issue of vaccines which are mandatory for travel to Saudi Arabia for Umrah and Hajj," Chaudhry said in response to media queries on the issue. "We have proposed inclusion of some of the Chinese vaccines used in Pakistan in the list of vaccines approved by the Saudi authorities.

The Ministry of Foreign Affairs is actively pursuing this matter with the Saudi side," he told a foreign media outlet. Saudi Arabia's new vaccine condition has raised questions for Pakistani nationals who intend to visit the kingdom for pilgrimage or other purposes.

According to media reports, people who have not been administered Pfizer, AstraZeneca, Moderna or Johnson and Johnson shots may need to quarantine themselves for a substantial period on arriving in Saudi Arabia. Pakistan has mostly administered Chinese vaccines to its citizens in a government-run immunization campaign that began last February.

The country only started using AstraZeneca to inoculate its citizens after receiving 1.2 million doses of the vaccine earlier this month under the World Health Organization's COVAX programme for equitable distribution of COVID-19 shots among the developing nations.