Pakistan to start production of single-dose virus vaccine: SAPM
3m doses will be prepared at the National Institute of Health each month; Islamabad to receive 19m coronavirus vaccine doses by June; govt plans to vaccinate 70m people by year end, says Dr Faisal
Special Assistant to the Prime Minister (SAPM) on National Health Services, Regulations, and Coordination Dr Faisal Sultan on Monday announced that Pakistan will become largely self-sufficient in meeting its COVID-19 vaccine needs as it will begin producing the single-dose Cansino Bio vaccine locally.
In a media briefing, Dr Faisal said that due to the agreement on technology transfer, the National Institute of Health (NIH), will be able to produce three million doses per month which will significantly reduce the country’s dependence on other countries.
Dr Sultan also said that 19 million doses of COVID-19 vaccines will be received by Pakistan by coming June.
He told the reporters that the government has so far signed deals for procuring 30 million coronavirus vaccine doses.
Dr Sultan stated that the government was not relying on donations and 90 per cent of the doses were being purchased. He said that 150,000 vaccines are being administered on a daily basis. “Our target is to increase this capacity to 300,000,” he said.
He added that local filling of the single-dose Cansino vaccine was about to begin in Pakistan, under which three million doses will be prepared at the National Institute of Health of Islamabad each month. “This will reduce our dependence on imported doses,” he said.
Meanwhile, Pakistan’s recoveries from the coronavirus have risen to 728,044 ater 5,842 more people recovered from Covid-19. Meanwhile, 5,377 virus patients are in critical condition.
In the meantime, ater reducing the number of inbound flights to 20 per cent as part of measures to halt the spread of COVID-19 from May 5 to 20, Pakistan has also slashed the number of foreign airlines’ flights to 120 per week.
Currently, 29 foreign airlines have been operating 590 flights per week to Karachi, Lahore, Islamabad, Peshawar, Queta, Faisalabad, Sialkot and Multan.
Air Arabia has been operating 60 flights weekly to Pakistan but it will now reduce its flights to 12 per week. Air China will reduce its flights to only one from seven weekly. British Airways, which is currently operating 11 flights, will reduce the number to two. China Southern is operating nine flights, but it will reduce them to only two. Emirates is operating 67 weekly flights but now it will reduce them to 13 and Etihad Airways, which is currently operating 32 flights, will reduce them to six.
Dr Faisal said that China was a strong partner and had gone out of its way in keeping up a supply chain and transferring technology to Pakistan.
He said that the government had planned to vaccinate 70 million population by the end of the year 2021. He said that the population of Pakistan which was currently eligible for vaccination was 100 million out of 220 million as the vaccines had only been approved for those above 18.
He added for the first half of the year, January to June 2021, the government had received and expected to receive 19.82 million doses. He added 91% of these doses were purchased, which clearly shows we were not dependent on donations.
He said that manufacturers like Astra Zeneca and Moderna have been unable to meet demand while some of the world’s largest vaccine manufacturing countries have imposed embargos on exporting vaccines until their local demand is met. He said that the government is proud of its accomplishments especially considering the serious global supply issue when some of the richest countries like Australia and Canada had to slow down or halt their vaccine roll-out.
He said that it is erroneous to compare Pakistan with countries like the US and India who are self-sufficient in vaccine production already. “We are certainly moving in that direction now but so far Pakistan did not have the capacity for vaccine production.”
He made it clear that Pakistan’s vaccine roll-out began very soon ater India’s as the first vaccine dose was administered in India on the 16th of January while the first vaccine dose was administered in Pakistan on the 2nd of February.
Dr Faisal said,” Pakistan has a population of 220 million and we have vaccinated over 2.5 million people. So Pakistan has vaccinated five times as many people as Bhutan actually and, in fact, three times the whole population of Bhutan.”