Pakistan has received 700,000 doses of the Sinopharm vaccine from China, with another 1.3mn doses of the same vaccine expected to arrive in the country today (Sunday). 

Sources in the Ministry of Health informed that in the next four days, 2mn doses each of Sinovac and Sinopharm will arrive in Pakistan through various planes from China. 

Sources said 2mn doses of the Sinovac vaccine will be brought to Pakistan from China on Monday and Tuesday. 

Pakistan is also expecting more doses of the UK vaccine AstraZeneca to arrive in the country. 

On June 22, a special flight of the Pakistan International Airlines (PIA) PK-6852 airlifted two million doses of Sinovac COVID-19 vaccine from the Beijing Capital International Airport to Islamabad.

Sources had said around three million more doses of COVID-19 will be transported to Pakistan in the next 10 days.

The government aims at inoculating 70 million people by year’s end.

Pakistani health authorities had launched a nationwide vaccination drive with around a million doses of Sinopharm vaccine donated by China, starting with older people and frontline healthcare workers, in March.

The National Command and Operation Centre (NCOC) had earlier revised the guidelines for two-dose Chinese vaccines, increasing the gap between the doses to six weeks.

The two-dose SinoVac and Sinopharm vaccines were initially administered with a four-week gap which has now been increased to six weeks.

Originally published at The nation