45 Million Doses Of ‘Made In India’ Covid-19 Vaccines To Reach Pakistan Via Gavi Alliance: Report  

According to a report published in Pakistan daily The Nation, Pakistan is likely to receive around 45 million Indian manufactured doses of COVID-19 vaccine. Notably, this will be the first batch of Covishield, the vaccine developed by the Serum Institute Of India (SII), to reach India's neighbouring country, reports Hindustan Times.

Pakistan will get free doses of India-made Oxford-AstraZeneca’s coronavirus vaccine under an agreement with Global Alliance for Vaccines and Immunisation (Gavi). It would receive the first batch of Covid-19 vaccine by mid-March and the rest of it is expected to arrive by June.

Gavi is a public-private global health partnership with the goal of increasing access to immunisation in poor countries. Earlier in September, Gavi had signed an agreement with Pakistan to provide Covid-19 vaccines manufactured by the Serum Institute of India.

Federal secretary of the Ministry of national health services regulations and coordination Aamir Ashraf Khawaja said in a meeting of the Public Accounts Committee (PAC) that the vaccine doses were stated to arrive under the agreement in the first week of March but the dispatch got delayed.

He said that a total of 45 million doses of vaccine would be received under an agreement and out of total, 16 million would be received till June this year.

He added that a total of 27.5m people, including frontline workers and senior citizens, have been vaccinated against Covid-19 in Pakistan.