Editorial

Cure in reach

There is, however, still a very long way to go

January 31, 2021

Federal Minister Asad Umar has relayed the good news that vaccines for the Covid-19 pandemic will soon be available in Pakistan and frontline workers will be amongst the first to receive it. After a year where the country lost over 10,000 souls, forced the entire nation into a lockdown, plummeted the economy into recession for the very first time, this news is like sighting the light at the end of a very long, very dark and treacherous tunnel.

For weeks, we have been hearing about how the government was working with vaccine manufacturers and ensuring that it is at least in line to receive the doses, and vaccines made by certain global pharmaceutical companies were being tried and approved for use in the country by the Drug Regulatory Authority of Pakistan. That it now plans to start distributing them amongst some segments of the public means that some progress has been made in acquiring them.

There is, however, still a very long way to go.

A more detailed plan on how many doses will become available, at what time and where the centres will be set up remains abstract. The National Command and Operation Centre was told the other day that medical staff had been given the necessary training while hundreds of vaccination centres would be set up across Pakistan. For a country of millions, would hundreds of centres cut it? More questions include: where will we be able to procure all the doses required to vaccinate the masses? By when will procurement and vaccination be complete? And more importantly, how much will this cost a struggling economy like ours? Also, will Pakistan manufacture any vaccines?

Then there is the historical struggle Pakistan has had with vaccines which prevented the eradication of polio. How prepared are we to fight that? The light at the end of the tunnel can be seen now, but do we have a plan to help us exit this tunnel?

Published in The Express Tribune, January 31^st, 2021.

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