'Pakistan to get Sinopharm vaccine by early February'

By Aamir Latif

KARACHI, Pakistan (AA) - The first batch of COVID-19 jabs from the Chinese vaccine manufacturing company Sinopharm will arrive in Pakistan by the first week of February, a top Pakistani official told Anadolu Agency on Monday.

Dr. Faisal Sultan, a special assistant to the prime minister on health, said the "first installment of 1.1 million doses for about 500,000 people" will be received from Sinopharm.

Sultan, who is also the acting health minister, had told Anadolu Agency earlier that authorities were negotiating with China and Russia, among others, to procure the vaccines, and that frontline workers and senior citizens will be inoculated first.

​​​​​​​Pakistan has so far recorded a total of 504,293 cases of COVID-19 with 10,676 deaths.

Immunization has already begun in EU countries, the US, UK, and many Gulf states. The vaccines approved so far include the ones produced by BioNTech/Pfizer and Moderna.

Pakistan will launch the vaccination drive in the second quarter of this year, Nausheen Hamid, the parliamentary secretary at the Health Ministry, said late last month.