Pakistanis aged 65 and above to be vaccinated against Covid-19 in March

The inoculation drive to vaccinate those aged 65 and above against Covid-19 will begin in March, National Command and Operations Centre (NCOC) chief Asad Umar announced on Wednesday.

Taking to Twitter, the Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) leader also announced that the government will kick off registration process for the vaccination drive by as early as next week.

“Inshallah will be opening up registration next week for covid vaccination for those 65 years and above. The vaccination of those who register in this category will start in march,” he wrote on his official handle.

The statement comes days after the first batch of the Covid-19 vaccine, donated by China, arrived in Pakistan. The 500,000 doses of China’s Sinopharm vaccine were donated by Chinese President Xi Jinping and arrived at the Nur Khan Airbase with the help of a Pakistan Air Force aircraft on February 1.

In addition to the 500,000 doses of Sinopharm from China, Pakistan has also secured 17 million indicative doses of the AstraZeneca vaccine, out of which 35-40 per cent or 6 to 6.8 million doses will be available within the first quarter of the current year.

"Happy to share that in addition to the 500,000 doses of Sinopharm, almost 7 million does [doses] of AstraZeneca to be made available in Q1 and given to the public free of cost," Special Assistant to Prime Minister on Health Dr Faisal Sultan wrote on his official Twitter handle.

The country's vaccination drive began with the frontline healthcare workers last week.

Those who have received the anti-Covid jabs have encouraged their colleagues in a video released by the government on Wednesday not to shy away in getting the shot, saying there are no side effects.

The video showed brief interviews of health workers belonging to different health facilities across the country.