Tag: vaccine orders

  • Vaccine procurement woes

    Vaccine procurement woes

    We thought the year 2021 will be a year of hope after last year’s pandemic outbreak. This year will indeed be a year when a vaccine is rolled out around the world but there is a catch. According to the People’s Vaccine Alliance – a coalition including Oxfam, Amnesty International and Global Justice Now – just one in 10 people in dozens of poor countries will be able to get vaccinated against the coronavirus because wealthy countries have hoarded more doses than they need.

    The Alliance said that the rich nations have bought more than 50 per cent of the total stock of the world’s most promising vaccines, despite being home to just 14 per cent of the global population. According to the Duke Global Health Innovation Centre, the current models predict that there will not be enough vaccines to cover the world’s population until 2023 or 2024. This is quite worrying. Pakistan, too, has yet to procure the vaccines.

    Special Assistant to the Prime Minister on Health Dr Faisal Sultan told Dawn that Pakistan’s target is to procure the vaccine in the first quarter of the current year, and “we are confident of doing so. But it is quite difficult to say on which date we will acquire the vaccine”. Reports indicate that apart from Chinese vaccines and the Oxford vaccine, Pakistan will also be relying on the World Health Organization’s (WHO) COVAX initiative, which insures “rapid and equitable access to COVID-19 vaccines for all countries, regardless of income level”. Some government officials say that Pakistan did not have enough resources to place orders initially for vaccines. It is understandable given that Pakistan’s economy is already struggling.

    The lesson to learn from this pandemic is that countries like Pakistan must invest in science, technology and medical/health research. If we do this, we would be able to work on our own vaccines and manufacture them in the future. Healthcare is one of the top priorities of the current government. The government must step up and invest in research related to healthcare so that it helps Pakistan in the future. Coronavirus may have been a once-in-a-century pandemic but there will be new health emergencies that we could face in the future. Thus, it is important to invest heavily in research because the future is all about scientific research and development.

  • Govt officials get secretly vaccinated amid delay in mass vaccination, claims journalist

    Govt officials get secretly vaccinated amid delay in mass vaccination, claims journalist

    Amid reports of a delay in the procurement of vaccine, senior journalist Sohail Warraich has claimed that the government is in no hurry to order the coronavirus vaccine as most of the senior government members have already been vaccinated against the deadly disease.

    In an article published in Jang, Warraich implied the bigwigs of this country are in no hurry to inoculate the masses as they now consider themselves safe following the administration of the vaccine. His article was shared by former Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz (PML-N) minister Miftah Ismail, who retweeted the column on his Twitter handle.

    A similar claim was made by journalist Saleem Safi as well. He tweeted that the senior government officials and aides of the prime minister have already been vaccinated. “These people are now distributing the vaccine to their near and dear ones,” he alleged.

    Federal Minister for Information Shibli Faraz rejected these claims. Talking to The Current, Faraz said he hasn’t heard anything like this to the best of his knowledge.

    Asad Umar, who heads the National Command Operations Centre to fight the virus, also denied these reports while talking to a media outlet.

    He said a proposal for the earliest vaccination of strategic leadership was presented earlier, but it was rejected by the government. “I, however, do not know if someone got themselves vaccinated in secret,” he added.

    As the pharmaceutical companies, such as Pfizer, started to roll out vaccines, the government announced that Pakistan will have the vaccine by March 2020. However, a recent report revealed that the government has not even placed the final order for the procurement nor has any manufacturer agreed to sell it to Pakistan as of yet.

    PM’s aide on health Dr Faisal Sultan was quoted by The News saying that Pakistan has yet to place a final order and strike a deal with a manufacturer.

    On Dec 31, it was reported that the government had decided to purchase 1.2million doses of a Chinese vaccine, Sinopharm, amid a worsening coronavirus outbreak across the world.

    Pakistan had planned to vaccinate its population in three phases: In the first phase, frontline health workers will be inoculated; the second phase will be focused on the elderly; the third phase will be for the general populace.