India started delivering coronavirus vaccines to its neighbours on Wednesday, the foreign ministry said, flagging off a drive to garner goodwill in an often fractious region with the first shipment sent to the tiny Himalayan kingdom of Bhutan. Bangladesh and Nepal said they expected deliveries on Thursday. The only neighbour absent from India’s list apart from China, is Pakistan, which had not requested assistance, according to an Indian government official.
Pakistan will receive its first batch of COVID-19 vaccines from its long-trusted friend China. Foreign Minister Shah Mehmood Qureshi announced that his Chinese counterpart has offered to gift 0.5 million doses of vaccines which will arrive in the country by month end.Prime Minister Imran Khan had directed to increase interaction with Beijing considering the sensitivity of the situation. China has immediately agreed to allow Pakistan to airlift the vaccines to save many lives.
The Chinese have stepped to the occasion to provide the vaccine. The Chinese vaccine SinoPharm is also approved in Pakistan and has shown promising results. The gesture should be welcome and will help cement the historic relationship with China. However, Pakistan had even greater requirements and will at least 1.1 million does in the near future. It will be imperative to secure more does from the Chinese as well as other manufacturers.
While we are told a deal has been struck with Sinopharm from China, there are questions over when the vaccine consignment can be delivered and when the actual rollout will start. Sindh Medical, once the largest medical retail businesses in the country, has also struck a deal to obtain the vaccine manufactured by Oxford University with assistance from a European partner AstraZeneca.
The question also will be to persuade Pakistanis that the vaccines are safe and can be taken without any side effects. This means training staff in delivering them and setting up the right protocols. All this will take time, especially in a country which has been hesitant about vaccine use. Centres where vaccines are to be given must be knowledgeable about possible allergic reactions and minor side effects
Centres where vaccines are to be given must be knowledgeable about possible allergic reactions and minor side effects. Sindh Medical has said it will be delivering the vaccine when and if it receives enough doses, only to high quality medical centres such as Aga Khan University Hospital and Shaukat Khanum Trust Hospital. But it is unfortunate that Pakistan has still to receive any vaccine at all. Given that we had known for months that a vaccine would eventually be necessary, this again seems to be an issue of mismanagement and bad planning.
Pakistan should seriously work to acquire this vaccine and all necessary measurements to tackle this menace as soon as possible.
Shfaqna Pakistan
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