Pakistan Has Many Vaccine Candidates To Offer In Its Covid-19 Inoculation Drive

Pakistan has now started work towards it immunization drive by approving the Oxford Astra Zeneca Covid19 vaccine, sources have confirmed.  Towards this, their National Command and Operation Centre (NCOC) have formulated guidelines for an eight-step vaccination process.

The intent of guidelines is to ensure people are vaccinated in a ‘healthy environment’ and in accordance with health guidelines. The NCOC intends to gather information and manage the inoculation drive through an online portal namely the National Immunisation Management System (NIMS) to be operated by the NCOC itself.

Of the 5 million cases of infection, there are reported deaths of around 10 percent. However, the previous data has shown that it took the administration far longer to contain the spread of the virus at the onset.  Towards the immunization drive, Pakistan has also set up Adult Vaccine Centres (AVC) that have been established by National Vaccination and Administration Control Cell (NVACC).

Meanwhile, China is trying very hard to win its reputation back as it promises to donate a sizable amount of its own vaccine candidate to Islamabad.

Read More | China to gift Pakistan half-million COVID-19 vaccine doses

At the moment, Pakistan is making use of the UK generated version, Chinese and the Russian version of the vaccine. All of them do not provide more than 60 percent efficacy advantage.

Another Chinese vaccine candidate that is being developed in Pakistan itself will also be ready with the preliminary results by February 2021. It has been going through the Phase III of its trial process.  Pakistan’s Health Minister Faisal Sultan has said Pakistan could get “in the range of tens of millions” of vaccine doses under an agreement with China’s Cansino Biologics Inc.

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In the first phase 400,000 medical personnel will be administered with the medication. As the NIMS service is completely computerized, it is not going to need any manual handling and the immunization drive will be carried out automatically. Citizens will need to send a short service message to register themselves for the vaccination, and they will receive the instructions to visit nearest centre for their shots.