Pakistan government not planning to buy COVID-19 vaccines, says official

Pakistan on Thursday said it is not planning to buy COVID-19 vaccines as of now and the government aims to tackle the outbreak through "herd immunity and donations". According to PTI, Pakistan's National Health Service (NHS) chief Amir Ashraf Khawaja on March 4 informed the Public Accounts Committee that the government has no plans of buying COVID-19 vaccines as it aims to tackle the pandemic through "herd immunity" and donations from other countries, such as China and Russia. 

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'15% of people have attained immunity'

Herd immunity is when a large group of populations develop antibodies against a virus and become naturally immunised. The NHS Secretary on Thursday claimed that 15% of Pakistan's population has developed antibodies against the COVID-19 virus, according to a survey conducted by the government in August 2020. Pakistan is also relying on donations from other nations, including through the World Health Organisation's (WHO) COVAX initiative. Pakistan is expected to receive 16 million doses of India-made AstraZeneca's COVID-19 vaccine through WHO's COVAX. NHS Secy said the first-batch of jabs is scheduled to arrive this month and the rest of it will reach by June. 

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China donated the first batch of its home-made Sinopharm vaccine to Pakistan earlier last month. Pakistan was the first foreign nation to receive vaccine aid from China, which handed over 5,00,000 shots on February 1 as a show of support. Khawaja informed on Thursday that Pakistan is slated to receive 1 million doses of China's Sinopharm vaccine, saying 5,00,000 of which have already arrived and around 2,75,000 doses have been administered to health professionals. 

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Khawaja, who was responding to a question from Hina Rabbani Khar, a member of Pakistan's National Assembly, said the government aims to vaccinate 70 million people by the end of 2021. Khawaja further revealed that the government is yet to receive any credible application from private players for the import of vaccines. Khawaja said Pakistan's drug regulator had received three applications, but they were all rejected due to lack of information on vaccines they wanted to import.  

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(With inputs from PTI)