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PM Imran kicks off Pakistan's Covid-19 vaccination drive, February 2, 2021
Prime Minister Imran Khan on Tuesday evening oversaw the start of Pakistan's coronavirus vaccination campaign, with the first jab administered to a doctor in Islamabad.
Speaking at a ceremony to mark the launch of the drive, the premier congratulated his government's health team for moving rapidly to secure the vaccine and thanked China for donating 500,000 doses of the Sinopharm vaccine to Pakistan. He reiterated that the vaccine will be first administered to health workers working with Covid-19 patients, followed by the elderly in the high-risk age group.
"This (vaccine) is being distributed equitably among all the provinces so no one thinks we've provided more of it to one province," he said.
Prime Minister Imran urged all healthcare workers to get the vaccine, saying they were most at risk. He also appealed to the public to follow the Covid-19 standard operating procedures (SOPs) and wear a mask.
"If Allah has blessed Pakistan as compared to the rest of the world, we should be grateful for that and take full precautions," he emphasised. "If there is anything that slows the spread of the virus, it is a mask.
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Pakistan Secures 17 Million Doses of AstraZeneca Coronavirus Vaccine
By Ayaz Gul, January 30, 2021
ISLAMABAD - Pakistan announced Saturday it has secured 17 million doses of AstraZeneca’s coronavirus vaccine through the World Health Organization's COVAX program to vaccinate its citizens against COVID-19.
Additionally, the government said, a plane will fly to China on Sunday to airlift an initial tranche of the 500,000 doses of Chinese Sinopharm vaccine Beijing has gifted to Islamabad.
The coronavirus pandemic in Pakistan, a country of about 220 million people, is relatively under control. The South Asian nation detected the outbreak nearly a year ago and has since documented more than 543,000 confirmed COVD-19 cases, with close to 12,000 deaths.
Dr. Faisal Sultan, special health assistant to the prime minister, said Saturday that almost seven million doses of AstraZeneca’s vaccine will be available for Pakistani citizens in the first quarter of the year and the rest within the second quarter of 2021.
Sultan said in a statement that the vaccination drive was expected to start next week, beginning with front line healthcare workers.
“COVAX’s timely support and delivery of the vaccine is testament of global stakeholders’ trust in Pakistan’s preparedness for vaccine roll-out,” he noted.The WHO’s COVAX is a global program to vaccinate people in poor and middle-income countries against the coronavirus. The plan aims to deliver at least two billion vaccine doses by the end of 2021 to cover 20 percent of the most vulnerable people in 91 nations across the globe.
AstraZeneca’s vaccine has been developed with Oxford University researchers and it is being used as part of a mass immunization program in the United Kingdom.
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Gautam