First batch of 0.5m vaccine doses arrives in Islamabad from China

The first batch of Covid-19 vaccines arrived in Pakistan from China on Monday via a special Pakistan Air Force (PAF) aircraft.

The batch contains 500,000 doses of the Sinopharm vaccine that has been gifted by China. Special Assistant to the Prime Minister on Health (SAPM) Dr Faisal Sultan announced the development in a tweet and expressed his gratitude to the Chinese government and “everyone who made this happen”.

“NCOC and provinces played an instrumental role in tackling Covid. I salute our frontline healthcare workers for their efforts and they’ll be first to get vaccinated,” he tweeted.

According to real-time pictures shared with media, the PAF plane had landed in Beijing on Sunday at 7pm (4pm PST) and Sinopharm’s vaccine was loaded on it.

The plane landed at the Noor Khan Airbase in Islamabad on Monday morning. According to a statement by the National Command and Operation Centre (NCOC), a vaccine handing over ceremony will be held at the airbase at 2pm and will be attended by Foreign Minister Shah Mahmood Qureshi and Chinese Ambassador to Pakistan Nong Rong.

China has donated 500,000 jabs, with which the frontline healthcare workers will be vaccinated. Over 400,000 health professionals have applied for vaccination.

The registration process of citizens over 65 years would start in the next 10 to 15 days, Planning Minister and NCOC chair Asad Umar had told Dawn.

“As the doses will be stored in Islamabad, there is a possibility that vaccination will start a day earlier in the federal capital compared to the rest of the country,” Umar added.

An official of the Ministry of National Health Services, requesting not to be named, said arrangements were in place to maintain the cold chain management of the vaccine, right from storing it in a warehouse to its administration to healthcare workers.

“There is a warehouse of the Expanded Programme of Immunisation (EPI) which will be used to store the vaccine. Besides, we have developed the National Immunisation Management System (NIMS) through which we will monitor from Islamabad the doses utilised in each province and district and how many more were required. We will ensure that the new stocks are available before the existing ones run out,” he said.

“Not only have we secured 500,000 free doses from our all-weather friend China but another 1.1m jabs, which had been pre-booked from Beijing, will also arrive,” the official said, adding that Covax had also given us a written assurance that it would provide 17m doses of Oxford-AstraZeneca vaccine in the first six months of the ongoing year.

“Out of these 17m, around 7m will be received before the end of March. We are confident that the healthcare workers, citizens over 65 years of age, people in the age bracket of 50 and 65 years and those with chronic diseases will be vaccinated by the end of June,” he added.

Vaccination drive

Last week, Umar had announced that the vaccination drive — which is already underway in several countries — will begin in Pakistan this week, starting with frontline health workers.

Pakistan’s vaccine strategy has been finalised and, after announcement of registration of different segments included in the priority list, citizens will have to send their computerised national identity card (CNIC) number to 1166 through SMS or through NIMS website for registration. After verification, a designated vaccine centre on the basis of the present address mentioned in the CNIC as well as a pin code will be sent to citizens through SMS.

People will have the option to change their vaccine centre by visiting NIMS website or by calling on the helpline 1166 within five days of the receipt of the first SMS. A vaccination centre and appointment date will then be shared.

On the date of the appointment, people will have to reach the centre with their original CNIC and also share their pin code. After administration of the vaccine, the recipient will remain in the centre for 30 minutes for post inculcation monitoring.

So far, Pakistan has approved three coronavirus vaccines — the Oxford-AstraZeneca vaccine, the vaccine developed by Chinese state-owned firm China National Pharmaceutical Group (SinoPharm) and Russian-developed Sputnik V.

Officials say the authorisations will be reviewed quarterly with regard to safety, efficacy and quality.

Special Assistant to the Prime Minister on Health Dr Faisal Sultan has said Pakistan could get “in the range of tens of millions” of vaccine doses under an agreement with China’s Cansino Biologics Inc.