Pakistan to get 45 million ‘Made-In-India’ vaccine under GAVI alliance

Pakistan will receive 45 million doses of ‘Indian-made’ vaccine under the United GAVI alliance, Federal Secretary National Health Services, Regulation & Coordination Aamir Ashraf Khawaja on Thursday informed the Public Accounts Committee (PAC) of Pakistan.

Pakistan: Pakistan will receive 45 million doses of ‘Indian-made’ vaccine under the United GAVI alliance, Federal Secretary National Health Services, Regulation & Coordination Aamir Ashraf Khawaja on Thursday informed the Public Accounts Committee (PAC) of Pakistan.

GAVI, a public-private global health partnership to improve access to immunization in poor countries.

 It has been providing assistance to Pakistan all through the pandemic as well. It had signed an agreement with Pakistan to provide the COVID-19 vaccine in September 2020.

Secretary Khawaja said that a total of 45 million doses of vaccine would be received under an agreement with GAVI, and out of those, a total 16 million would be received by June this year.

“It is an Indian manufactured vaccine that would be administered to Pakistani nationals under the GAVI alliance that has been aiding developing and lower-income nations on the vaccine front,” he had said.

India has supplied vaccines to 65 countries so far under three categories- as part of global vaccine alliance, in the form of grant or aid (free of cost), and through commercial sales. All of India’s neighbours, except Pakistan, are among the countries that got these vaccines.

Afghanistan, Maldives, Nepal, and Bangladesh began their vaccine rollout using ‘made-in-India’ vaccines.

Last year, the United GAVI alliance pledged to provide free vaccines for 20 percent of the population of around 190 countries, including Pakistan.

On Monday, Gita Gopinathan, the International Monetary Fund’s (IMF) Chief Economist, said India was emerging as the vaccine manufacturing hub.

“India really stands out in courses of its vaccine policy. If you look at where specifically is one manufacturing hub for COVID vaccines in the world – that will be India,” she said. 

Worldwide, more than 11 crore cases of coronavirus have been logged so far. With 1.12 crore cases, India logged the second-highest number of infections after the United States. 

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