Pakistan PM Imran Khan tests positive for COVID-19 2 days after 1st dose of vaccine

In a key development on Saturday, Pakistan PM Imran Khan tested positive for COVID-19 two days after being administered the first dose of the Sinopharm vaccine. Faisal Sultan, Special Assistant to the Pakistan PM on National Health Services, Regulations & Coordination made this announcement on Twitter. Moreover, he added that Khan is self-isolating at home. Till now, Pakistan has recorded 6,23,135 confirmed novel coronavirus cases out of which 579,760 patients have recovered while 13,799 fatalities have been reported. The country is witnessing a resurgence of COVID-19 with 3,876 cases being reported over the past 24 hours — the highest since July 2020. 

Pakistan to get COVISHIELD vaccine

Pakistan will receive 16 million doses of COVISHIELD through the COVAX route after it refused to directly procure Indian-made novel coronavirus vaccines. India has reportedly committed 100 lakh doses of vaccines to COVAX, a global initiative which aims at ensuring that middle and lower-income countries get timely access to COVID-19 vaccines. The vaccine doses will be provided free of cost to Pakistan. This information was revealed by the chairman of Pakistan Lower House's Public Accounts Committee.

He also mentioned that the first batch of the vaccine is expected by mid-March while the rest of it might arrive by June. So far, the Imran Khan-led government has approved China's Sinopharm vaccine, the Oxford-AstraZeneca vaccine and Russia's Sputnik-V for emergency use. On Wednesday, Pakistan received the second consignment of half a billion of Sinopharm vaccines donated by China. Currently, the country is vaccinating the frontline health workers and people above the age of 60 years. 

COVID-19 inoculation in India

On January 3, the Drugs Controller General of India accepted the recommendations of the Subject Expert Committee of the Central Drugs Standard Control Organisation, paving way for the approval of COVISHIELD and COVAXIN. On January 16, PM Modi launched the pan-India rollout of the novel coronavirus vaccination drive via video conferencing whereby the healthcare and frontline workers would get vaccinated in the first phase. In the second phase of the vaccination drive which is underway at present, all persons aged above 60 and those above 45 with comorbidities are eligible to get themselves inoculated by registering on the CoWIN portal. So far, 3,53,77,912 beneficiaries have been inoculated out of which 71,96,629 persons have been administered the second dose of the vaccine too.