BEIJING: Pakistan International Airlines (PIA) has airlifted fresh consignments of 11 million doses of Sinovac Covid-19 vaccine by four special flights from the Capital International Airport, Beijing to Islamabad, PIA Country Manager, Qadir Bux Sangi said on Thursday.
Three special flights of the national flag carrier i.e. PAK-6852, PAK-6853, and PK-6854 have already transported a total of nine million doses of Sinovac vaccine from December 28 to December 30, he told. PIA special flight PK-6855 carrying two million doses of Sinovac Covid-19 vaccines will leave the Chinese capital here for Islamabad tonight, he added.
Qadir Bux Sangi said that from December 10 to December 15, PIA transported 15 million doses of Sinovac Covid-19 vaccines by five special flights from Beijing to Islamabad. PIA special flights PAK-6852, PAK-6853, PK-6856, PK-6857 and PK-6858 transported 15 million doses of Sinovac vaccine from December 10 to December 15, he added.
According to official sources, the health authorities in Pakistan are using most of the Chinese vaccines during the ongoing campaign to prevent and control Covid-19 pandemic. Pakistan was the first country in the world, which received a coronavirus vaccine from the Chinese government as a donation.
On February 01, the first tranche of 500,000 doses of coronavirus vaccines donated by the Chinese government arrived by a special Pakistan Air Force plane in Islamabad. Later, on February 8, China People’s Liberation Army (PLA) delivered a batch of Covid-19 vaccines to the Pakistan Armed Forces at the latter’s request. According to latest statistics of NCOC, a total of 155 million doses of Covid-19 vaccines have been administered in the country. Around 96 million people have received the first dose of vaccine while 69.5 million people have fully been vaccinated.
