Covid vaccination

We must remember that vaccine doses earmarked through Covax are not enough to even cover the over-65 population

There is some good news on the Covid-19 vaccination front as PM’s Assistant on Health Dr Faisal Sultan has revealed that Pakistan will be getting 2.8 million doses of the Oxford-AstraZeneca vaccine in another two weeks. The vaccines are coming from Pakistan's Covax programme allocation. If waste is avoided, the number is good enough to cover almost 1.5 million people. Sultan informed the nation at a presser the other day that Pakistan should be getting about 17 million total doses through Covax by June.

As things stand, about 60,000 frontline healthcare workers have been vaccinated using the Chinese Sinopharm vaccine, only 500,000 doses of which are available. In addition, the Sinopharm vaccine, though effective, was approved without being thoroughly tested on senior citizens. This is why seniors, including those in the healthcare sector, are not being vaccinated with it. The vaccination strategy, according to Sultan, has been streamlined to help healthcare workers get easier and faster access to existing vaccine stocks. Non-frontline healthcare workers can get vaccinated from Monday, while vaccination for senior citizens — the most at-risk age group — will begin in March. Seniors will exclusively get the AstraZeneca vaccine.

While it is heartening to learn that vaccination for seniors will begin soon, we must also remember that the total vaccine doses earmarked through Covax are not enough to even cover the over-65 population of the country, let alone all healthcare professionals and younger, at-risk people. Estimates show that the over-65 population of Pakistan is about 10.3 million. With zero waste, Pakistan's initial Covax allocation of 17.2 million doses will only cover 8.6 million people. The government needs to find ways to increase acquisition fast. Perhaps appealing to big businesses, including some run by the political elite, is a solution.

This is literally what is happening in the island nation of Honduras, which ranks alongside Pakistan in terms of economic indicators. Businessmen and private companies — knowing that their government can't afford or manage the job — are covering the costs for vaccine acquisition and distribution. Would patriotic Pakistani businesses stand up to do the same?