China will provide 5 lakh doses of its Sinopharm COVID-19 vaccine free of cost to Pakistan by January 31.
Pakistani regulators approved the Sinopharm vaccine for emergency use on Monday.Pakistan has also approved the Oxford-AstraZeneca vaccine for emergency use but it is not known when it will be available.
Pakistan's Foreign Minister Shah Mehmood Qureshi said "I thanked them and also told them we need more than this, and in the future we will need 1.1 million doses, and they reassured us and said by the end of February we plan to meet this requirement for you as well,"
Qureshi said he had also raised the possibility of jointly manufacturing vaccines with China.
Pakistan is also nearing completion of a phase three trial of another Chinese vaccine from Cansino Biologics Inc.
Some 17,500 people had enrolled in the trial so far, and initial results would be available in the beginning of February.
Pakistan's Health minister Faisal Sultan said at a press conference on Wednesday Pakistani officials had also been meeting with UK officials for discussions on procuring vaccines from there.
According to the ministry of National Health Services that the number of total cases reached 527,146, while 480,696 have so far recovered from the disease. As many as 11,157 people have died so far .
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