Daily Times

BEIJING: A special flight of Pakistan International Airlines (PIA) PK-6852 airlifted two million doses of Sinovac Covid-19 vaccine from the Beijing Capital International Airport to Islamabad on Tuesday.

This special flight of the national flag carrier is in addition to the special flight PK-6852 which transported 1.55 million doses of the Sinovac vaccine from China to Pakistan on last Sunday, Qadir Bux Sangi, PIA Country Manager for China told APP.

According to official sources, around three million doses of Covid vaccine will be transported to Pakistan in the next 10 days.

The government has run a massive vaccination drive across the country to achieve the target of providing 70 million doses of vaccines aimed at fighting the Covid-19 pandemic.

As many as 2.3 million people in Pakistan got vaccinated against COVID during the last week (June 12-18).

It may be mentioned that Pakistani health authorities had launched a nationwide vaccination drive with around a million doses of Sinopharm vaccine donated by China, starting with older people and frontline healthcare workers, in March. The drive began with a focus on the oldest people in the community, generally over the age of 80 and worked its way down.

Initially, the government had to deal with vaccination hesitancy and a shortage of vaccine supplies and had limited shots for people aged 30 or over but now it is available for all people aged over 18 years.

Islamabad received the first COVID-19 vaccine consignment after a military aircraft transported it from Beijing on February 01, this year.