Pakistan receives 1st batch of Pfizer vaccine

By Aamir Latif

KARACHI, Pakistan (AA) - Pakistan has received the first batch of over 100,000 jabs of the Pfizer vaccine under the COVAX facility -- which aims to help poorer countries fight the pandemic, authorities said Saturday.

"Over 100,000 (106,000) doses of Pfizer vaccine via Covax have arrived in Pakistan. Shipments of Pfizer diluents and syringes will be arriving over the next two days. The vaccines will be used for government of Pakistan's ongoing COVID19 vaccination campaign," UNICEF said in a tweet.

This is the second shipment of vaccines under the program led by the World Health Organization.

Islamabad had received over 1.2 million doses of the AstraZeneca vaccine under the program earlier this month.

Another shipment of 1,236,000 jabs is likely to arrive in the country within the next few days.

Pakistan is set to receive a total of 17.2 million doses through the COVAX facility.

The South Asian country has so far approved the emergency use of five vaccines -- China's Sinopharm, CanSino, and Sinovac, the UK’s AstraZeneca, and Russia's Sputnik.

It has also started locally producing the CanSino vaccine with the help of China.

Only 6 million people out of a total population of 207 million have been inoculated so far.

The government last week opened registration for vaccination of people above 19 years of age.

The country's overall virus tally has reached 916,239 with 20,680 deaths.