Pakistan steers through pandemic scare with help of Chinese vaccines

ISLAMABAD, Aug. 13 (Xinhua) -- Pakistan received the first batch of COVID-19 vaccine that China provided for the COVAX facility this week.

Early on Wednesday morning, a batch of Chinese Sinopharm COVID-19 vaccine arrived at Islamabad International Airport.

Pakistani officials and experts say that the vaccine donations are not only indicators of the deep-rooted ties between the two countries, but also show that at the raging time of vaccine nationalism, China is sticking to its spirit of building a global community of health for all.

At a ceremony held here, Special Assistant to Prime Minister on Health Faisal Sultan said China's vaccine donation through COVAX highlights the manifestation of the commitment of the Chinese leadership that vaccine is a global public good and should be made available to the people across the globe to help them fight against the disease.

"China leads the way in supplying these vaccines...through the COVAX facility, it aims to reach the populations that perhaps have the biggest difficulty in purchasing a vaccine," he said.

Pakistan is currently facing a serious fourth wave of COVID-19 as the rapid spread of the Delta variant, and it successfully overcame the previous three waves by ensuring implementation of guidelines identified by the National Command and Operation Center (NCOC) and speeding up its vaccination drive.

Experts believe that China came to Pakistan's rescue in the crucial first wave when the healthcare teams were the most prone to catching the disease and tens of doctors and paramedics died whereas hundreds of others got infected.

Talking to Xinhua, Bilal Ahmad, a public health officer associated with non-government Panacea Healthcare System &Research Center, said that Pakistan's victory against the disease started when the first batch of Chinese vaccine donation was started administering to the frontline medical staff because it gave a hope that beginning of the end of the pandemic had already started.

"Initially 0.5 million vaccine shots were inoculated to the healthcare workers which were the most vulnerable people to contract the disease, but in the long run it proved that by inoculating millions of others including the patients visiting the hospital and their families were also indirectly protected from the virus."

Timely vaccination drive and later speeding up the campaign after procurement of the vaccine from China also helped the country to repair its economy during FY2021 after seeing negative growth in FY2020 due to pandemic outbreak.

In a conversation with Xinhua, Noor Ahmed, former secretary of the country's Economic Affairs Division, Ministry of Economic Affairs, said that the "timely vaccination drive with the help of China contributed to the normalization of business and economic activities particularly in urban areas where COVID-19 economic impact is the hardest."

Experts say that the timely arrival of the vaccine in the form of the donation from China helped the country open almost all sectors of the economy as the ratio to catch disease gradually decreased and people and businessmen returned to their normal life.

"The Chinese donation also helped the Pakistani government save money it had allocated for COVID-19 emergency fund to financially help the people who lost their jobs during the pandemic, and buying medical equipment for the disease-infected patients besides buying protective equipment for the frontline staff," Ahmed said.

In an earlier conversation with Xinhua, Asad Umar, head of the NCOC, said that China's role in Pakistan's vaccination drive has been crucial because currently, all countries are vaccinating their populations and the vaccine supply is always shorter than demand.

"Pakistan so far has received a bulk of vaccine from China in the form of donation or procurement by the Pakistani government. If China did not come through for Pakistan to kick off the vaccination drive and make more jabs available to it in the following months, we would have been in a desperate situation."

Sultan said that the government had to extend days between the two doses as they were in the process of procuring vaccines and there was not enough availability in the stock, but after the donation of Sinopharm through COVAX, the duration between the two doses has been reduced from 42 days to 28 days.

He said that his country has recently reached the mark of administering 40 million vaccine doses to its public and the biggest share in this number is of Chinese vaccines including Sinopharm, Sinovac and CanSino which are being processed in Pakistan with support from China.

"Through our experience of inoculating the Chinese vaccines to the public, we have seen that they are safe, and have great acceptability within Pakistan. And all the preliminary analysis that we have been able to do, shows that it provides good protection against the disease."

Pakistan is not the only country that has received vaccine donation under COVAX from China. Bangladesh also received Sinopharm vaccines under the same facility this week.

Talking about China's commitment, Chinese Ambassador to Pakistan Nong Rong said at a ceremony, "In the face of the COVID-19, China has announced a series of major initiatives to support the global fight against the pandemic, promoting the building a global community of health for all with practical actions. China has consistently supported the work of the United Nations and its specialized agencies."

Underlining the need for international cooperation and solidarity to fight the pandemic, he said that the virus can be defeated in the earliest possible way if the international community work together.

"Do away with vaccine nationalism and jointly oppose the politicization of the origin-tracing of the coronavirus, support the waiver of intellectual property rights on vaccines, promote fair and equitable distribution of vaccines worldwide," said the ambassador.