ISLAMABAD – Days after Pakistan received single-dose vaccine developed by China’s CanSino Biologics Inc, the age limits for jabs has been reduced by 10 years in Islamabad, local media reported.
Earlier, it was announced that vaccine could be administered to people with aged 80 or above but not it has been reduced from 80 to 70 years.
Following the changes, septuagenarians in Islamabad may now get the CanSino vaccine.
Pakistan started administrating single-dose Chinese vaccine to people aged above 80 from Monday (April 5) in all provinces.
A consignment carrying 60,000 doses of the anti-COVID vaccine developed by CanSino Biologics Inc was received last week.
The government had announced to set up separate Adult Vaccination Centers (AVCs) for it.
The vaccine will be made available at all walk-in facilities at the newly established AVCs, however, NCOC has instructed that no vaccination be done outside the National Immunization Management System (NIMS), which means that without registration, nobody should be vaccinated with a single-dose.
Meanwhile, a private firm AJM Pharmaceutical Limited will also be importing 10,000 doses of the CanSino coronavirus vaccine and it will be sold initially to three private hospitals in Islamabad, Lahore and Karachi where its trials were held.
DRAP’s registration board had given emergency use authorisation to CanSino Biologics’s single-dose vaccine in the second week of February 2021 after the Chinese manufacturer released interim efficacy results from a multi-country trial, which included Pakistan.
The results showed 65.7% efficacy in preventing symptomatic COVID-19 cases and a 90.98% success rate in stopping severe infections.
