Pakistan has no bilateral procurement agreement with India on COVID-19 vaccine: FO

ISLAMABAD: Pakistan on Thursday made it clear that it had not entered into any bilateral procurement agreement with India on purchase of COVID-19 vaccine and the supply of doses was being carried out through GAVI, the international vaccine alliance.

“The procurement and supply mechanism of vaccine doses is undertaken by GAVi and not the respective countries,” the Foreign Office (FO) spokesperson Zahid Hafeez Chaudhri said at a weekly press briefing held here.

He was responding to a question on reports that Pakistan would receive 45 million ‘made in India’ doses of COVID-19 vaccine.

He said GAVI had offered doses to several countries including Pakistan under COVAX, the COVID-19 Vaccine Global Access as an initiative launched by the World Health Organization to ensure vaccine access to the world’s most vulnerable.

To a question regarding update on missing Pakistani retired army office Habib Zahir in Nepal, the spokesperson said on request of the government, Nepal had constituted a special team to look into the incident, but there was no progress in the matter so far.

He mentioned that there was a strong evidence pointing towards the involvement of Indian hostile agencies in the abduction of Habib Zahir, including involvement of Indian nationals who reportedly received him at Lumbini, made his hotel reservations and booked his tickets.

“The abduction of Habib Zahir is a serious transnational crime which is in sharp contravention to the international law, especially human rights and humanitarian law,” he said.

He said the UN Working Group on Enforced or Involuntary Disappearances had also registered the case of Habib Zahir, on the request of his family.

He urged upon the relevant authorities in India to respect the United Nations (UN) and constructively engage with the UN Working Group and take necessary steps to enable immediate release of Habib Zahir.