China continues support to Pakistan amid the pandemic

ISLAMABAD: The government of China has continued its support to expedite Covid vaccine delivery to Pakistan for strength its fight against pandemic.

China and Pakistan have been working together to overcome difficulties since the outbreak of the pandemic.

The government of Pakistan has also received the first batch of purchased Chinese Covid-19 vaccines of CanSino and Sinopharm.

The spokesperson of health Ministry Sajid Shah told APP that the first consignment of the 500,000 doses produced by China’s Sinopharm reached the federal capital on February 1st while another batch of 500,000 doses of Sinopharm’s coronavirus vaccine from China reached on March 17 in Pakistan.

He said that the vaccination process was started nationwide on February 3 for which the government had initially set up 189 centres in Punjab, 14 in Sindh, 280 in Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa, 44 in Balochistan, 14 in Islamabad, 25 in Azad Jammu and Kashmir and 16 in Gilgit-Baltistan.

Shah said that the government had launched COVID-19 vaccination for the general public on March 10 while vaccinating its people aged 60 years and un the first phase, frontline health workers and over against COVID-19 in the second phase of the nationwide vaccination drive.

The vaccine is being provided to federating units in compliance with all health guidelines. The dozes are transported by airplanes to Sindh, Balochistan and Gilgit-Baltistan to maintain the temperatures and save time, he stated. In February, the third phase trials of the CanSino vaccine showed that it is 74.8 percent efficient in preventing symptomatic cases of Covid-19 in the country.

However, it is the responsibility of the people to strictly adhere to the standard operating procedures and get inoculated so that herd immunity is achieved,” he added.

He further told that China also donated 7,000 surgical masks to China through the Chinese embassy in Pakistan.

He added that sine one month authorities imposed number of restrictions on commercial activities and official work Last week with ensurance of 50% staff at workplaces.

According to the CanSino Biologics Inc. the single-dose CanSino Covid-19 vaccine is expected to facilitate the building of immunity in the Pakistani society to help the country restore the normal functioning of society and economy.

Special Assistant to Prime Minister on National Health Services Dr Faisal Sultan along with officials from the health ministry were present at the Nur Khan Airbase to receive the vaccine doses that included 0.5 million doses of Sinopharm and 60,000 doses of CanSino that the Pakistani government purchased from China.