ISLAMABAD: Special Assistant to Prime Minister on Health Dr Faisal Sultan has asserted that the pressure on country’s COVID-19 vaccine stock would ease next week amid reports of vaccine shortage.
Taking to Twitter, the Special Assistant said 12.9 million cumulative vaccine doses have so far been administered in the country, with 226,000 inoculations on June 18, 266,000 on June 17, and 416,000 on June 16.
Available doses countrywide over 1 million
Anticipated June arrivals:-
20th 1.55 million
22nd 2.5 million
23 to 30th 2-3 million + 400,000 Pakvac (Cansino)Therefore any pressure in the system & local/distribution issues will be eased by Mon/Tue, inshallah
— Faisal Sultan (@fslsltn) June 19, 2021
The premier’s aide also said Pakistan currently has a stock of more than a million vaccine doses, while the government anticipates nearly eight million vaccine doses to arrive in the country by the month’s end.
“As many as 1.55 million doses would arrive on June 20, 2.5 million jabs on June 22, while from June 23-30, 2-3 million doses along with a raw material to produce 400,000 PakVac vaccines would reach Pakistan”, he said.
Vaccine shortage
With less than 2% of the total population fully vaccinated, two of the largest provinces in Pakistan — Sindh and Punjab — are facing shortages of coronavirus vaccines, sources said Friday.
In Lahore, only four out of 23 vaccination centres are administering vaccines, sources in the Punjab Health Department said, adding that the number of vaccination centres had been reduced due to a shortage of the jabs.
Similarly, in Karachi, the situation is just as worrying, as 90 COVID-19 vaccination centres have run out of vaccines, according to sources in the Sindh Health Department.
Sindh to keep vaccination centres closed this Sunday
Earlier in the day, the Sindh government, keeping in view the available stock of the vaccine doses, decided to keep all vaccination centres closed this Sunday (June 20).
This was decided in a meeting of the Provincial Task Force on Corona, chaired by Chief Minister Murad Ali Shah, with provincial ministers in attendance.
According to a statement released by the Sindh government, the committee was briefed on the pandemic situation and the shortage of vaccines across the country, which has gotten serious in the last few days.
