Federal Minister for Science and Technology Chaudhry Fawad Hussain has said that all government-sponsored COVID-19 vaccination will be available free of charge.

"All Government-sponsored vaccination will be free of cost," Science and Technology Minister Fawad Chaudhry said in a series of tweets.

The minister added that the government is negotiating vaccine purchase deals with "all companies," including Pfizer and AstraZeneca. Fawad informed that in in coming months more doses will be imported besides those from Sinopharm.

“1.1 million doses are for batch only we intend to import millions of doses in coming months, secondly private sector is allowed to import Vaccine.... you have to store vaccine and administer also so import will always be in batches,” he stated.

Last week, the cabinet committee decided to initially purchase 1.2 million doses of the vaccine from the Chinese company Sinopharm.

Earlier, Federal Minister for Planning Asad Umar had in a statement issued on social media yesterday said that the Cabinet Committee meeting has approved the purchase of 1 million COVID-19 vaccine which will be provided to all front line health workers.

"As soon as DRAP experts approve the vaccine, our goal is to deliver the vaccine in the first quarter of January," Umar said.