KARACHI: Pakistan received almost 500,000 additional doses of COVID-19 Vaccine AstraZeneca in October through donations from Sweden, Norway and Switzerland, to help boost the vaccination programme.
This brings the total number of doses supplied to Pakistan via the COVAX global initiative and through donations from other countries to almost four million, with more expected in the coming months.
Sameh Elfangary, Country President for GCC and Pakistan, AstraZeneca said: "Our COVAX partners have played a pivotal role in these challenging times to ensure vaccine doses reach those countries in need.
The supply of vaccines is an important factor to minimize the impact of the pandemic in Pakistan and the country is showing encouraging signs of recovery with lower registered cases of COVID-19.
We remain committed to broad and equitable vaccine access, and we will continue to work with the government of Pakistan to defeat this pandemic and protect public health."
To date, more than 1.7 billion doses of AstraZeneca's vaccine have been released for supply to over 170 countries, and more than two-thirds of doses have gone to low- and lower-middle-income countries.
AstraZeneca was the first global pharmaceutical company to join COVAX in June 2020 and more than 157 million doses of its vaccine has been delivered globally through COVAX to 130 countries, to date.
COVAX is a global initiative co-led by the Coalition for Epidemic Preparedness Innovations (CEPI), Gavi (the Vaccines Alliance) and the World Health Organization (WHO), which works with governments and manufacturers to accelerate the development, production and equitable access to COVID-19 vaccines around the world.
From the 585 million people who had received at least one dose of COVID-19 Vaccine AstraZeneca as of September 2021, the vaccine has prevented over 105,000 deaths and over 620,000 hospitalizations worldwide.
Copyright Business Recorder, 2021
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