Pakistan Army receives coronavirus vaccine gift from China
Pakistan military is the first foreign military to receive vaccine assistance from PLA.
RAWALPINDI/BEIJING: China has donated a COVID-19 vaccine for Pakistan’s armed forces, after which it became the world’s first foreign military to receive vaccine assistance from the Chinese military.
According to the Inter-Services Public Relations (ISPR) said on Monday that: “People’s Liberation Army (PLA), People’s Republic of China has donated COVID-19 vaccine for Pakistan Armed Forces.”
However, keeping with the Pakistan Armed Forces’ traditional spirit of ‘nation comes first, always and every time’ ISPR said: “It has been decided to contribute complete vaccine donation, by PLA to Pakistan military, in the National vaccine drive to be administered to front line healthcare workers across Pakistan who are real heroes fighting against pandemic and Saving precious lives.”
The military’s media wing said that Pakistan’s Armed forces extend their deepest gratitude to PLA and People’s Republic of China for this magnanimous donation during testing times.
On the other hand, Minister for Planning, Development and Special Initiatives Asad Umar lauded the military leadership’s decision. In his tweet, he stated: “Great decision by the military leadership to hand over the consignment of vaccines sent by the peoples liberation army of china as donation to Pakistani miltary, consistent with govt decision of first priority to health care workers.”
Recently, Special Assistant to the Prime Minister (SAPM) on Health Dr Faisal Sultan said in its tweet that Clinical trial data phase-3 received: “Clinical trial data (phase-3) of a one-dose Ad5-nCoV vaccine for Covid (Cansino Bio) received. Interim analysis by the Independent Data Monitoring Committee shows 65.7% efficacy at preventing symptomatic cases and 90.98% at preventing severe disease (multicountry analysis).”
He also congratulates Pakistan team for conducting this trial: “In the Pakistani subset, efficacy at preventing symptomatic cases is 74.8% & 100% at preventing severe disease.”
Last week, Pakistan received the first batch of the Covid-19 vaccine, also donated by China. The 500,000 doses of China’s Sinopharm vaccine were donated by Chinese President Xi Jinping and arrived at the Nur Khan Airbase with the help of a Pakistan Air Force aircraft. Pakistan has asked China for another one million doses.
Pakistan is also set to receive 17 million doses of AstraZeneca’s COVID-19 vaccine under a global scheme to deliver coronavirus treatments to developing nations. About 6 million doses will arrive by the end of March under the COVAX scheme, with the remainder due by mid-year, SAPM on Health Faisal Sultan announced last week. Pakistan was also the first country in the world to receive vaccines donated by the Chinese government.
A countrywide Covid vaccination drive started last Wednesday. Of the 0.5 million doses, Sindh was provided 84,000, Punjab 70,000, KP 65,000, and Balochistan 10,300 doses.
