No Covid jabs in Sindh today amid vaccine shortage

KARACHI – The decision to suspend the vaccination drive in the country’s second-largest province by population was taken due to the unavailability of a sufficient number of vaccines, officials said Saturday.

Reports in mainstream media cited that all vaccination centers in Sindh will remain closed today in wake of a shortage of vaccines.

As the shortage augmented, officials claimed that an agreement has been reached between Pakistan and Pfizer-BioNTech for the procurement of at least 13 million doses of Covid-19 mRNA vaccine for the country, and the first shipment is expected to reach the South Asian country by the end of next month.

Meanwhile, Pakistan is in the final stages of procurement of 10 million doses of the Russian Sputnik-V vaccine, whose first shipment is likely to reach by the end of June.

Earlier, PM’s aide on health Dr. Faisal Sultan also said ‘the pressure on the country's coronavirus vaccine stock would ease beginning next week’. At least 12.9 million cumulative vaccine doses have so far been administered in the country with 226,000 inoculations on June 18, 266,000 on June 17, and 416,000 on June 16, he wrote in a tweet.

Dr. Sultan also claimed that Pakistan currently has a stock of more than a million vaccine doses, while the government anticipates nearly eight million vaccine doses to arrive in the country by the month's end.

As many as 1.55 million doses would arrive today (June 20), 2.5 million jabs on June 22, while from June 23-30, 2-3 million doses along with a raw material to produce 400,000 PakVac vaccines would reach Pakistan, he added.

As for now, a total of 3,243,988 vaccine doses have been received by Sindh so far, of which 2,873,857 have been used, a statement said.