BEIJING, Aug 7 (APP): Three special planes of Pakistan International Airlines (PIA) airlifted a fresh batch of two million doses of Sinopharm vaccines from the Beijing Capital Airport to Pakistan amid the fourth wave of the Covid-19 pandemic.
Three flights of the national flag carrier, PK-6856, PK-6857, and PK-6858 have transported consignments of two million doses of the Chinese-made Sinopharm vaccines to Pakistan from China, Qadir Bux Sangi, PIA Country Manager for China told APP here on Saturday.
Another batch of 1.5 million purchased by Pakistan from Chinese company CanSino will be brought to Pakistan in the next few days.
Pakistan has expedited the vaccination process in the wake of the fourth wave of Covid-19 in the country.
According to official sources, over 30 million people have so far been inoculated in Pakistan.
Pakistan has been using mainly Chinese vaccines namely Sinopharm and Sinovac besides other vaccines.
The government has run a massive vaccination drive across the country to achieve the target of providing 70 million doses of vaccines aimed at fighting the Covid-19 pandemic.
The 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 this year.
The drive began with a focus on the oldest people in the community, generally over the age of 80 but now the vaccine is being administered to people aged over 18 years.
Islamabad received the first COVID-19 vaccine consignment after a military aircraft transported it from Beijing on February 01, this year.
It may be mentioned that China will provide a total of 2 billion doses of COVID-19 vaccines to the world this year, in the latest effort to honor its commitment to making vaccines a global public good by ensuring vaccine accessibility and affordability.
China will donate $100 million to the COVAX global vaccine initiative for the distribution of vaccines to developing countries.
