ISLAMABAD: Pakistan has registered 400,000 health workers for coronavirus vaccination, Special Assistant to the Prime Minister (SAPM) on National Health Services, Dr Faisal Sultan said.
He said this while attending an online workshop pertaining to health challenges, adding that China has gifted half million doses of the vaccine to Pakistan, which will be made available to the people free of cost.
The SAPM said that in the first phase, frontline health workers will be vaccinated, while in the second phase, senior citizens will be administered with the anti-pandemic medicine.
He said so far 400,000 health workers had been registered for vaccination.
Dr Sultan stressed the need for adhering to precautionary measures to prevent the spread of the Covid-19 pandemic.
He urged the media to play its due role in creating awareness in that regard.
He said Pakistan was hopeful it would receive the first batch of the Covid-19 vaccine from China’s Sinopharm in “early February.”
Pakistan said last month it would purchase 1.2 million Covid-19 vaccine doses from Sinopharm in the first official confirmation of a vaccine purchase as the country battles a second wave of infections.
The government and private sector companies would bring vaccines into Pakistan but the private sector companies have to get their vaccines registered with the Drug Regulatory Authority of Pakistan (DRAP), Sultan said.
Copyright Business Recorder, 2021