Pakistan launches locally-developed Covid-19 vaccine ‘PakVac

Pakistan has launched its completely locally-developed vaccine ‘PakVac’, just a day after the government decided to run a massive COVID vaccination drive across the country in order to achieve the target of providing 70 million vaccines to the people.

PakVac vaccine has been mass-produced by the Ministry of Health with the help of China’s Cansino Bio after severe quality control checks.

Whereas the Ministry of Health had originally ordered the Health Department to prepare three million doses of PakVac.

Federal Minister for Planning, Development, Reforms, and Special Initiatives Asad Umar stated that the coronavirus pandemic has become a challenge for the whole world and today’s top demand is COVID-19 vaccines.

He said, “the situation of the pandemic in Pakistan was quite better by the grace of Allah Almighty as compared with the other countries”. He further stated that “neither any disease will care about any boundaries nor it discriminates any human’s family and religion”.

“Only nations that focus on increasing their knowledge and have the capacity to translate that knowledge equation into technological progress,” Umar said, adding that today’s achievement was part of the same link.

Asad Umar informed that the NCC had permitted the strategy of vaccination drive prepared by the National Command and Operation Center (NCOC).

“We want that maximum number of people should be administered the vaccines in June and July before the Eid-ul-Azha to avoid imposing lockdown in the county during the Eid festival.

The NCOC took some difficult decisions during the last ten days of Ramadan and Eid days but they yielded positive results as the positivity ratio had come down from 10-11 percent to 4 percent.

Pakistan so far has vaccinated about 5.3 million people. Asad stated that there was no issue of vaccine availability as “we have already arranged 10 million more vaccines while 10 million more would available in June and further 10 million in July, he added.

He said during the previous day, some 383,000 vaccines were provided but “we want to increase the daily vaccine number by 100 per cent”. He said now the whole of nation approach was being adopted to ensure the effectiveness of the vaccination drive.

The minister further added that the federal government would provide free-of-cost vaccines to all people including 18 years and above.

In order to make the drive successful, the government would involve different stakeholders including media, bar councils, religious scholars, Ulema, trade bodies, and others to run the drive together.