Pakistan likely to receive Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine under COVAX programme

Under World Health Organization's COVAX programme, Pakistan is likely to receive Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine in the first quarter of the year.

The WHO signed an advance purchase agreement with the American pharmaceutical, where it will receive at least 40 million doses of the drug, which has been approved for emergency use by the global health body.

As per the statement issued last week, the vaccine rollout will commence with the "successful negotiation and execution of supply agreements."

COVAX also confirmed it would receive first 100 million doses of the Oxford-Astrazeneca vaccine manufactured by the Serum Institute of India (SII) under an existing agreement with the Indian firm.

It also anticipates another 50 million doses from UK-based pharmaceutical Oxford-Astrazeneca. As per the existing agreement with the company, the shipment will be made in first quarter of the year.

The COVAX initiative ensures “rapid and equitable access to COVID-19 vaccines for all countries, regardless of income level”.

Of the 190 participating economies, Pakistan is among the 92 that qualify for the financial mechanism Gavi COVAX AMS.

The facility guarantees access to 2 billion doses of approved vaccines and aims to protect at least 20% of each participating population by the end of the year – unless a participant has requested a lower percentage of doses.

"At least 1.3 billion of these doses will be made available to the 92 economies eligible for the Gavi COVAX AMC by the end of 2021.