At least 5.6 million Covid-19 vaccine doses to arrive by end of March: NCOC

Government starts registration of citizens over 60 years of age

The country's nerve centre for Covid-19 response on Saturday announced that at least 5.6 million doses of the virus' vaccine will arrive in the country by the end of March. 

National Command and Operation Centre (NCOC), in a statement, added that out of the 5.6 million vaccine doses, 2.8 million from WHO's Covax initiative will reach the country in the first week of March and 2.8 million additional doses will arrive by the second week of March.

The country will receive a total of 17.1 million Covid-19 vaccine doses by the end of June 2021.

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.

Read: How to get the Covid vaccine in Pakistan

Registration of citizens over 60 years of age has also been started by the government, the NCOC said and added that senior citizens can SMS their CNIC number (without dashes) on 1166 for registration. 

General healthcare workers can now register at www.covid.gov.pk/vaccine.

Given an overview of the ongoing vaccination of healthcare workers, the NCOC said at least 72,882 frontline health workers have been vaccinated across Pakistan.

The country's vaccination drive began in the first week of February with the inoculations of frontline healthcare.