ISLAMABAD: A special plane of Pakistan International Airlines (PIA) carrying 1.55 million doses of the Sinovac vaccine arrived here from China on Sunday amid reports of shortages of the coronavirus vaccines in the country.
The latest consignment of Sinovac vaccine, according to a statement of the National Command and Control Centre (NCOC), is part of a planned contracted quantity purchased from China.
“China as a time tested friend of Pakistan has taken special measures to ensure uninterrupted supply of vaccines to Pakistan. Another consignment of 2-3 million doses of Chinese vaccines will be reaching Pakistan in next week followed by continued supply,” the NCOC stated.
It added that measures are in place to transport these vaccines to all the provinces according to their requirements.
In a tweet, Minister for Planning, Development and Special Initiatives and NCOC Head Asad Umar said that last week during June 12-18, more than 2.3 million vaccinations were done at a rate of 332,877 per day.
“This is the highest so far in any week. With 1.5 million vaccines arriving today and another almost 5 million in the next 10 days, inshallah next week will be a new record. Well done Pakistan,” Umar tweeted.
The anti-Covid vaccines arrived at a time when shortage of the vaccines was reported from various major cities across the country including Lahore, Karachi, Islamabad and Rawalpindi, bringing the vaccination process either to a halt or slowing it down.
The shortage of the vaccines in various cities also triggered criticism over the government from the opposition, urging the government to increase supply of the vaccines.
Leader of the opposition in National Assembly and Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz (PML-N) president Shehbaz Sharif criticized the government for its alleged mismanagement with respect to the timely import of the vaccines for the vast population of the country.
“The unavailability of the coronavirus vaccine is another proof of the government's criminal negligence and incompetence. It is unfortunate that the government is showing the most serious display of criminal negligence with regard to the people's lives,” Shehbaz said in a statement on Sunday.
He said that the opposition parties had time and again called for timely availability of the vaccines so as to save precious lives from the deadly virus.
Meanwhile, according to the data released by the NCOC on Sunday, a total of 1050 positive cases of coronavirus, showing a positivity rate of 2.55 percent and 37 Covid-19 related deaths were reported across the country during the last 24 hours. It stated that a total of 41,065 tests were conducted.
Copyright Business Recorder, 2021
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