Islamabad :
A special plane of Pakistan International Airlines (PIA) arrived in Islamabad from China carrying 1.5 million doses of Cyano Week vaccine, the National Command and Operations Center (NCOC) said in a statement. The statement said that all steps have been taken to transfer the vaccine to all federal units as per the requirement.
At the same time, the NCOC said that another 2 million to 3 million Chinese vaccines are expected to arrive by next week, after which the supply chain will begin.
The NCOC statement said that China, as a tried and tested friend of Pakistan, had taken special measures to ensure uninterrupted supply of vaccines.
It is to be noted that the vaccine doses have come to Pakistan at a time when the country is facing a shortage of vaccines and the vaccination process in major vaccination centers in Karachi, Lahore, Islamabad and Rawalpindi has either been suspended or slowed down. As a result, the number of daily vaccinations, which was 400,000 at the beginning of this month, has dropped by 40%.
An official of the Punjab Health Department confirmed to Dawn that all the vaccination centers in the province except three centers in Lahore have been closed for the last three days due to shortage of vaccines.
On the other hand, due to shortage of vaccines in Sindh, all vaccination centers were closed on Sunday. Earlier, Sindh Chief Minister Murad Ali Shah had said that 225 mobile vaccination units have been closed while 60 private hospitals have been temporarily vaccinated. Closed on
Meanwhile, Federal Minister for Planning and NCOC chief Asad Omar said that more than 2.3 million doses of vaccine had been administered this week, a record.
In a Twitter message, he said that an average of 332,877 vaccines were administered daily during the past week.
“With 1.5 million vaccines arriving today and another 5 million doses in the next 10 days, God willing, a new record will be set next week,” he said.
