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ISLAMABAD: Pakistan has decided to permit private firms to import COVID-19 vaccines and agreed to exempt such imports from price caps.
According to media reports, the Regulations and Coordination division had sought a special cabinet exemption to permit for such imports while excluding the imported vaccines from the strict price cap regime that is typically applied to all drug sales within the country.
Health Minister Faisal Sultan confirmed the cabinet approved the proposal. The decision is vital as Pakistan is yet to secure substantive volumes of vaccines from any companies and it only this month launched a vaccination drive with 500,000 doses of Sinopharm’s vaccine donated by long-time ally China.
Those shots are first being given out to frontline health workers on a priority basis. Sultan said that Pakistan still planned to inoculate its population for free and only a “small minority” who wish to pay for the shots will have that option in the open market.
Faisal Sultan said the government was under close contact with other international firms manufacturing the Covid-19 vaccine, adding, government vaccination drive aims to get a “cost-effective and best result oriented” vaccine that could be administered to people.
Earlier, Sultan had announced that China’s CanSinoBio COVID-19 vaccine showed 74.8 percent efficacy in preventing symptomatic cases and a 100 percent success rate in stopping severe disease among Pakistanis.
The special assistant, citing the Independent Data Monitoring Committee’s report, in the global trials, said the efficacy of the vaccine at preventing symptomatic cases was 65.7pc and 90.98pc at preventing severe disease.
The SAPM said that the IDMC did not report any serious safety concerns and that the data included as many as 30,000 participants and 101 people who had tested positive for coronavirus.
