Follow Us on Google News
ISLAMABAD: Drug Regulatory Authority of Pakistan (DRAP) has green-lighted emergency use of Chinese anti-coronavirus vaccine produced by Sinopharm amid ongoing second COVID-19 wave in the country.
As per details, the decision was taken in meetings held between January 14 and 18 after reviewing vaccine results data submitted by the National Institute of Health (NIH). The move also allows federal and provincial governments, and the private sector to import the anti-COVID-19 drug.
The drug is developed by China National Biotec Group (CNBG), a Sinopharm subsidiary. On December 30, Sinopharm announced that phase III trials showed the vaccine was 79% effective. Thus far, the vaccine has been approved for use in China, Jordan, Egypt Bahrain and Serbia.
This is the second vaccine approved for emergency use in Pakistan. Last Friday, Special Assistant to the Prime Minister Dr Faisal Sultan said AstraZeneca’s COVID-19 vaccine had been approved for emergency use in Pakistan making it the first coronavirus vaccine to get the green light for use in the South Asian country.
Drug Regulatory Authority of Pakistan (DRAP) granted emergency use authorization to AstraZeneca’s COVID vaccine, the country’s health minister said. Pakistan, which is in the midst of the second wave of coronavirus infections, Dr Faisal said it would procure more than a million doses of Sinopharm’s vaccine, but the Chinese vaccine would approve soon.
Pakistan is in the process of speaking to a number of vaccine makers, and Sultan said the country could get “in the range of tens of millions” of vaccine doses under an agreement with China’s CanSinoBio.
The vaccine company’s Ad5-nCoV COVID-19 candidate is currently nearing completion of phase III clinical trials in Pakistan. Pakistan reported 2,432 new coronavirus infections and 45 deaths on Friday, taking the total number of cases to more than 516,000 and deaths close to 11,000.
Sultan said the federal cabinet approved the Economic Coordination Committee’s (ECC) recommendation to allocate $150 million to acquire a vaccine for the novel coronavirus. He said the government hopes to procure the COVID-19 vaccine in the first quarter of 2021.
