ISLAMABAD – Prime Minister Imran Khan’s National Task Force on Science and Technology Chairperson Dr Atta-ur-Rehman on Monday said the coronavirus vaccine will be available in Pakistan in the next two months.
In a statement, Dr Rehman said Pakistan will have to try hard itself to procure COVID-19 vaccine since the richer and bigger countries have already paid for it.
Over the past weekend, Pakistan increased the funds allocated for purchasing Covid-19 vaccine from $150 million to $250 million and signed non-disclosure agreements (NDAs) with different multinational companies.
In the first phase of vaccinations, frontline health workers attending to patients and people over 65 years will be vaccinated.
In the second phase, the remaining healthcare workers and people over 60 years of age will get preference.
Furthermore, according to Parliamentary Secretary on National Health Services (NHS) Dr Nausheen Hamid, the vaccine alliance GAVI has also pledged to provide vaccines for the 20 per cent population.
By the end of 2021, it would be available to the masses.
Pakistan records 36 new deaths, 2362 fresh cases of COVID-19
Meanwhile, the number of coronavirus cases jumped to 440,787 on Monday after 2,362 new cases were reported.
Another 36 patients died in the last one day, taking the Covid-19 death toll to 8,832, according to the NCOC, which added that there are 47,236 active cases in the country.
