Day before yesterday Pakistan reported the lowest number of deaths and cases of coronavirus infections and the good thing is that now the country has signed an agreement with Pfizer under which it would receive 13 million doses of the American vaccine (“Pak signs deal with Pfizer for 13m COVID-19 vaccine doses,” Gulf Today, June 23).

Pakistan’s National Command and Operation Centre (NCOC), which is headed by the Prime Minister for timely intervention relating to the national COVID-19 response effort, is doing a great job towards the implementation of the national COVID-19.  According to NCOC, 27 deaths and 663 cases of COVID-19 were reported in a single day.

According to the Dawn newspaper, the number of active cases, which had topped 90,000 in April, stood at 33,452 as of June 22, while 271 ventilators were in use across the country.

Pfizer doses will definitely help curb the pandemic as officials said the agreement was signed by Pfizer Pakistan and the National Disaster Management Authority (NDMA) to supply 13 million doses of the Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine (BNT162b2).

“We are deeply honoured to work with the government and marshal our scientific and manufacturing resources towards our shared goal of bringing a COVID-19 vaccine to the people of Pakistan as quickly as possible,” said Pfizer Pakistan Country Manager Syed Wajeehuddin in a statement. Chief Business and Chief Commercial Officer at BioNTech Sean Marett also thanked the Pakistani government for its support.

Mohammed Ali
By email