Observer Report
Islamabad
The British High Commission on Sunday announced that Pakistan will receive 17 million doses of the AstraZeneca vaccine before April, a statement from the Commission said.
Thereafter, “before June”, Pakistan will receive an “additional 10 million doses”, said the statement. With the vaccine, more than eight million people will receive protection from coronavirus, it added.
The Covax programme for Covid-19 vaccines announced a list of countries it will be distributing doses to, with Pakistan to get 17.2 million doses.
The initiative has planned enough doses for dozens of countries to immunise more than 3% of their populations by mid-year. A statement said the initial distribution was in line with a target “to protect the most vulnerable groups such as health care workers” in the first half of the year.
The Oxford-AstraZeneca vaccine is made from a weakened version of a common cold virus, known as adenovirus, from chimpanzees, and has been modified to look more like the coronavirus — although it cannot cause the illness.
When the vaccine is injected into a human body, it prompts the immune system to make antibodies and trains it to attack any coronavirus infection.
The jab has been found to be 76% effective against the original coronavirus after the first dose. Research shows that when a second dose is given after 12 weeks or more, the efficacy rises to 82%.
Meanwhile, a Pakistani lab will soon receive Russia’s Sputnik V Covid-19 vaccine for commercial sale, a company official said on Sunday, making Pakistan one of the first countries to market shots privately as it scrambles to secure supplies.
Despite concerns over fairness and higher prices, Islamabad agreed this week to allow the commercial import and sale of vaccines without price caps, in contrast to most countries, which are importing and administering vaccines through government channels.
“We are told the first shipment is expected within the next week,” Chughtai Lab director Omar Chughtai told media, adding it would be receiving several thousand doses. Pakistan’s decision to allow private sales of vaccine without a price cap in a lower-income country of 220 million people faces criticism.
Sputnik V is one of four vaccines approved for emergency use in Pakistan, in addition to those by China’s Sinopharm and CanSinoBio, and the AstraZeneca-Oxford University shot.
Chughtai Lab aims to import the others as well, but Sputnik V was the first to become available, Chughtai said. Health Minister Faisal Sultan told Reuters in a message he was “not directly aware” of the deal.
Pakistan’s drug regulator on Sunday granted permission to a Chinese company for third phase clinical trials of its Covid-19 vaccine candidate in the country.
“The clinical trials committee of the Drug Regulatory Authority of Pakistan has granted permission to China’s Anhui Zhifei longcom for clinical trials of its vaccine,” sources said.
