Observer Report
Islamabad
Special Assistant to Prime Minister Imran Khan on Health Dr Faisal Sultan on Wednesday announced that the government would provide Covid-19 vaccines, free of charge to the general public across the country.
Addressing a press conference here, Dr Faisal Sultan said that they were devising a mechanism for the provision of the vaccine to the people.
After clinical trial, the Drug Regulatory Authority of Pakistan approved AstraZeneca and Sinopharm’s vaccines for emergency use in the country, he said, adding that Pakistan would initially procure over 20 million doses of the coronavirus vaccines.
Dr Faisal Sultan, however, said that Sinopharm’s efficiency was 80 per cent. He said that the government will provide 1 million doses of the vaccine to the general public during the first quarter of the current year.
In the first phase, the coronavirus vaccine will be provided to healthcare workers and people over 60 years of age, he added.
Meanwhile, Pakistan on Wednesday reported 48 more coronavirus deaths and 1,772 new positive cases in one day. According to National Command and Control Center, around 1,800 cases of coronavirus were reported while 48 people succumbed to the disease in the last 24 hours, taking the total death toll to 11,103.
The total number of confirmed cases reached to 524,783. As many as 478,517 patients have recovered from the disease with 2,368 critical cases.
After sharp increase in the cases in Punjab, the number of patients swelled to 150,889 in the province. The province reported 4,4,476 coronavirus causalities.
In Sindh, the cases of infection have surged to 237,308 in the province, the most affected region in Pakistan. The death toll has reached to 3,830 in the province. The confirmed cases have surged to 64,078 in the province while the death toll has surged to 1,799 in KPK.
