Pakistan
Pakistan to purchase 13 million Pfizer jabs
Islamabad: Pakistan has made a contract to acquire 13 million doses of the Covid-19 shot from Pfizer.
According to the international news agency, Pakistan's special assistant for health Dr Faisal Sultan said that an exact timeline was not yet available, but he believed the doses would arrive by the end of 2021, under an agreement the government has made with the manufacturer.
Pakistan initially faced concerns about a shortage of vaccine supplies, but last month launched a large-scale campaign to vaccinate young people.
Pakistan received 100,000 doses of the Pfizer vaccine on May 29, but authorities have provided the US manufactured vaccine only to those with weakened immune systems.
Nearly 13 million doses of Covid-19 vaccines have been administered in the country of 220 million people so far, with about 3.5 million people fully vaccinated, according to the National Command Operation Center, which is overseeing the pandemic response.
Pakistan has largely relied on its ally China for vaccine supplies.
The main Chinese vaccines used in Pakistan are Sinopharm, Cansino and Sinovac.
The British vaccine AstraZeneca has also been available to people under the age of 40 since the beginning of this month, but has been offered to only travellers due to limited supplies.
The government is trying to get at least 70 million people vaccinated against corona this year. To achieve this goal, the government earlier this month approved Rs1.1 billion for vaccines.
So far, 9, 49,838 people have fallen victim to COVID in Pakistan, while 22,034 have died.
On Monday, 662 new cases of the corona were reported and 27 were killed.