In a major development towards the COVID-19 vaccination campaign, Pakistan on Tuesday launched its homemade anti-Covid-vaccine named “PakVac” a week after successfully developing it with the help of China’s CanSino Bio in order to vaccinate citizens in the country and bring it under control the spread of virus cases in the nation.
Several countries, including the United Kingdom, China and Russia, have already developed the vaccine against COVID-19, which are proving to be effective.
The fight against COVID-19 has seen vaccine development move at record speed, with more than 170 different vaccines in trials. But how are they different from each other and how will they protect us against the disease?
Anti Covid-19 vaccine ‘PakVac’
PakVac has been developed by China’s state-run pharmaceutical company CanSino Bio. It was brought to Pakistan in a concentrated form, where it is packaged at the National Institute of Health (NIH) in Islamabad.
CanSino was the first Chinese vaccine that undertook clinical trials at the National Institute of Health. The company’s interim efficacy results showed the vaccine had a 65.7 percent efficacy in thwarting symptomatic COVID-19 cases and a 90.98 percent success rate in preventing rigorous infections.
Pakistan had participated in the third level trial of PakVac, more than 120,000 jabs of the vaccine have been prepared. The NIH vaccine plant has the capacity to produce three million vaccines per month.
Launching ceremony
PakVac was launched during a ceremony, attended by Federal Minister for Planning, Development and Special Initiatives Asad Umar, who also head of the National Command and Operation Centre (NCOC), besides Special Assistant to Prime Minister on National Health Services Dr Faisal Sultan, Chinese Ambassador Nong Rong and others.
Addressing the ceremony, the head of the National Command and Operation Centre (NCOC) said that the day was an important one for the country, adding that the entire nation was proud of the team that had developed the vaccine. The minister congratulated the health teams of NIH and Chinese experts, who assisted in setting up the vaccine packaging process.
Vaccine’s standard
On this occasion, Dr. Faisal said the vaccine has been prepared after rigorous quality control checks, having met the World Health Organisation’s standards, adding that that the country will soon be able to start the production of the vaccine.
He lauded the National Institute of Health (NIH) for developing the vaccine, mentioning that developing the vaccine from raw materials is not an easy task. We are proud of the people that developed the vaccine at the NIH, the minister appreciated.
Expressing his gratitude to the Chinese authorities, the federal minister said that we also take inspiration from China and our prime minister also gives their example again and again. It is heartwarming the way China has supported us, as always.
Chinese Ambassador Nong Rong, in his address, stated that the vaccine’s production is an example of the friendship between the two countries, adding that Pakistan is the first country to accept the Chinese vaccine as a gift when the pandemic began.
Pakistan reports 1,843 coronavirus cases
On Wednesday, 80 deaths in the last 24 hours by novel COVID-19 were reported as the number of positive cases has surged to 924,667. The nationwide tally of fatalities has jumped to 20,930. According to the latest figures by the National Command and Operation Center (NCOC), 1,843 persons tested positive for COVID-19 in the past 24 hours.
Province-wise Details
Punjab remains the worst-hit province in terms of deaths and cases followed by Sindh and Khyber Pakhtunkhwa. Till now 10,084 individuals have lost their lives to the epidemic in Punjab 5,051 in Sindh, 4,095 in KP, 763 in Islamabad, 548 in Azad Kashmir, 282 in Balochistan, and 107 in GB.
Furthermore, 340,557 coronavirus cases have been confirmed in Punjab, 319,447 in Sindh, 133,124 in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, 81,357 in Islamabad, 25,295 in Balochistan, 19,287 in Azad Kashmir and 5,600 in Gilgit-Baltistan.
Tests and Recoveries
Pakistan has so far conducted 13,316,397 coronavirus tests and 47,183 in the last 24 hours. 848,685 patients have recovered in the country whereas 3,767 patients are in critical condition.
The covid vaccine in drive
Pakistan started its immunization drive in February 2021 with vaccine support from China. In the first phase, the campaign covered healthcare and eventually in the second phase it expanded to senior citizens.
Later, the government has decided to open vaccination for people aged 18 and above, paving an approach for all eligible age groups to get inoculated. Meanwhile, walk-in vaccination for people aged 30 and above is underway. Pakistan has so far approved Sinopharm, Cansino, Sinovac, AstraZeneca and Sputnik.
Eight million Covid vaccine doses administered
Almost eight million doses of the corona vaccine were administered to citizens in Pakistan since the beginning of the vaccination process.
According to statistics shared by the National Command and Operation Centre (NCOC) stated on Wednesday, as many as 305,093 people have been administered the COVID vaccine on June 1 and the total tally of vaccine jabs administered in the country stands at 7,953,574.
Govt’s vaccination drive commendable
The government’s vaccination drive has been commendable. To date a big number of people nearly eight million doses have been administered, vaccinating over five million people.
As per most citizens’ accounts, their experience at covid vaccination centers has ranged from reasonable to outstanding. In short, it has been a first-world practice in a third-world state, something that makes us extremely proud.
How soon will there be an impact?
The government under the leadership of PM Imran Khan has so far done its part in getting us the vaccines against the deadly pandemic. Now it’s our turn to fulfill responsibilities.
We should act like a responsible and civilized society not play a role in scattering fake rumors regarding the vaccine. We must think that irrespective of the effectiveness, the vaccine can guard us against getting critically ill.
We as a responsible nation need to get vaccinated not merely for ourselves but also for individuals around us. And we must inoculate a large bulk of the population quickly so that we can come back to normalcy.
