1.55m Chinese vaccine doses arrive

ISLAMABAD: The National Command and Operation Centre (NCOC) on Sunday apprised that a special Pakistan International Airlines (PIA) flight airlifted over 1.55 million doses of SinoVac Covid vaccine from China.The NCOC informed that the special consignment of SinoVac vaccine of 1.55 million doses had arrived at Islamabad International Airport through a special PIA flight which was part of planned contracted quantity purchased from China.

It added that another consignment of 2-3 million doses of Chinese vaccines would be reaching Pakistan in the next week followed by continued supply of COVID vaccine tranches. The NCOC said China as time tested friend of Pakistan has taken special measures to ensure uninterrupted supply of vaccines to Pakistan. However, measures are in place to transport these vaccines to all federating units according to their requirement.

Meanwhile, Federal Minister for Planning and head of National Command and Operation Center (NCOC) Asad Umar has said that Pakistan will hold record coronavirus vaccination next week.

In a tweet on Sunday Asad Umar said, “More than 2.3 million vaccinations were done from June 12 to 18 at the rate of 332,877 vaccines per day. Last week June 12-18 more than 23 lakh vaccinations were done at a rate of 332, 877 per day. This is the highest so far in any week. With 1.5 million vaccines arriving today and another almost 5 million in next 10 days Inshallah next week will be a new record. Well done Pakistan,” the minister wrote.

On the other hand Pakistan reported 1,050 cases of coronavirus on Sunday with 37 people losing their lives over the past 24 hours. The positivity ratio stands at 2.55%. Out of the 37 who died 17 people who succumbed to the virus breathed their last on ventilators as per data from the NCOC.

The new infections have caused the total number of active cases in Pakistan to surge to 33,972. Pakistan tested 41,065 people for the infection on Saturday. So far 892,319 people have recovered from the infection across Pakistan as per the NCOC.

In Balochistan and Gilgit-Baltistan there are no patients on ventilators. The total caseload of the infection has surged to 948,268 (AJK 19 934, Balochistan 26,585, GB 5,803, ICT 82,344, KP 136,973, Punjab 344,970, Sindh 331 659, while the total number of deaths has risen to 21,977.

Meanwhile, the government authorities have decided at large scale production of the locally made coronavirus vaccine PakVac. The decision has been taken to initiate preparations for production of the single dose PakVac from the next month, sources said.

The National Institute of Health Islamabad will prepare monthly three million doses of PakVac and the government has been informed about the decision, according to sources.

The decision to produce vaccine at large scale has been taken in view of the increased demand of the vaccine, sources said. Monthly production of three million vaccine doses will ensure sufficient availability of the corona vaccine jabs, which would significantly reduce the country’s dependence on other countries. The raw material of the vaccine will be provided by China’s CanSino Biologics, sources said.

The government will buy more raw material from the Chinese vaccine company for preparation of PakVac, sources added.