Pakistan purchases more than 1 million COVID-19 vaccine doses from China

ISLAMABAD – Federal Minister for Planning, Development Asad Umar said that Pakistan will receive the first consignment of purchased Chinese Covid-19 vaccines by the end of March.

The head of the National Command and Operation Centre (NCOC) said that the consignment will be carrying one million doses of Sinopharm vaccine and 60,000 jabs of Cansino vaccine.

Umar said that this is the first consignment of COVID-19 vaccines procured by the Pakistani government from any manufacturers, adding that they were in talks with the Chinese companies for buying a further seven million doses.

At least 72 people lost their lives due to the third wave of the novel coronavirus infection while 3,270 fresh cases have reported in the last 24 hours, National Command and Operation Centre (NCOC) said Tuesday.

According to the latest figures, the death toll has surged to 13,935 while the number of confirmed cases stands at 633,741.

In the past 24 hours, as many as 1,733 patients have recovered from the novel virus while the total recoveries stand at 585,271. The total count of active cases is 34,535.

At least 263,464 coronavirus cases have been confirmed in Sindh, 200,969 in Punjab 80,519 in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, 52,676 in Islamabad, 19,347 in Balochistan, 11,792 in Azad Kashmir, and 4,974 in Gilgit-Baltistan.

Moreover, 6,039 individuals have lost their lives to the epidemic in Punjab 4,479 in Sindh, 2,225 in KP, 548 in Islamabad, 338 in Azad Kashmir, 203 in Balochistan, and 103 in Gilgit Baltistan.

A total of 39,742 tests were conducted in the last 24 hours while 9,857,233 samples have been tested so far.