The Pakistan government will provide the coronavirus vaccine free of cost to its people and plans are afoot to start the immunisation drive by April next year, officials said on Thursday.
As the highest number of deaths i.e. 75 due to coronavirus in a single day was reported on Wednesday, since July, the National Command and Operation Centre (NCOC) decided to observe Covid-19 week to raise public awareness about the disease.
Parliamentary secretary on health Nausheen Hamid said the Pakistan Tehreek-i-Insaf government has approved funds to purchase the vaccine doses.
The PTI government will provide the coronavirus vaccines free of cost to the people. The government will start the vaccination from the second quarter of 2021,” Hamid tweeted.
PTI government will provide the coronavirus vaccine free of cost to the people.
Government will start the vaccination from the second quarter of 2021. In Shaa Allah @ImranKhanPTI@nhsrcofficial pic.twitter.com/KVALSZVYdH— Dr. Nausheen Hamid (@DrNausheenPTI) December 2, 2020
Hamid said the phase III of clinical trials of Chinese vaccines was proceeding well and the shots would be available to the people soon.
Pakistan’s coronavirus caseload rose to 4406,810 on Thursday after 3,499 new cases were reported in the last 24 hours.
The Ministry of National Health Services, in an update, said 39 people had died due to COVID-19 in the last 24 hours. Now, the COVID-19 death toll stands at 8,205. Nearly 347,000 people have recovered from the disease, while 2,469 people are in critical conditions.
Authorities said 42,904 tests were conducted in the last 24 hours, of whom 8.15 percent tested positive. In total, 5,627,539 tests have been conducted in the country.
Clinical trials for Ad5 are being conducted in the country and the response has majorly been positive. Health care specialists are confident that it will work wonders and will have a huge impact on the road to recovery.
Dr. Faisal Sultan, Special Advisor to the Prime Minister for Health shared that shortlisting for procurement purposes has commenced and the cabinet has allotted a budget of PKR 150M for the entire process of purchasing the vaccine.He further added that the 1st phase will give priority to people above the age of 60 and these individuals will be the first to get injected.
The Institute of Biology at China’s Academy of Military Medical Sciences and CanSino Biologics developed the Ad5 vaccine. It consists of an altered form of adenovirus aka cold virus that will carry the genetic material of the new coronavirus into the cells. Once the body’s cells are exposed to this they will begin making a coronavirus protein, a human being’s immune system will recognize the protein and attack it.
