Pakistan allows emergency use of third Chinese Covid-19 vaccine

Karachi: Drug Regulatory Authority of Pakistan (DRAP) has granted Emergency Use Authorization (EUA) to another Chinese vaccine, CoronaVac to fight Covid-19 pandemic.

This is the fifth coronavirus vaccine and the third Chinese vaccine to be used in Pakistan. Earlier, Pakistan had granted the EUA to China’s two-dose Sinopharm and single-dose Convidecia vaccine developed by the Cansino Biologicals Inc. UK’s AstraZeneca and Russian Sputnik V vaccines have also been approved by the DRAP.

DRAP officials said, the CoronaVac vaccine, despite its low efficacy rate was allowed by the health authorities to counter the third wave of the pandemic in Pakistan. They said the EUA was granted in a meeting on Thursday.

The third wave of coronavirus has killed 105 more people in Pakistan in the last 24 hours, taking the national death tally to 15,229. National Command and Operations Centre’s (NCOC) official data says that about 5,312 new cases emerged in the country with the total tally now recorded at 710,829 as of Thursday.

The new cases are the highest since June last year when the country faced the first wave of the coronavirus. Before this, the highest new cases in a day were 5,234 reported on April 1. With the new cases, the total number of COVID-19 infections in the country reached 705,501, the Ministry of National Health Services said.

Earlier, Prime Minister Imran Khan urged countries to call for treating the COVID-19 vaccine as a global public good while ensuring equity, affordability, enhanced production and timely supply to save lives.

Addressing the virtual D-8 summit hosted by Bangladesh Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina on Thursday evening, PM Khan said that the grouping was established due to a shared vision to improve member states’ position in the global economy and now it is a bloc of over one billion people, with a combined GDP of USD 4 trillion.

The D-8 is a group for development co-operation among Bangladesh, Iran, Turkey, Malaysia, Egypt, Indonesia, Nigeria and Pakistan. Amidst rising cases of the coronavirus in the country, Prime Minister Khan urged the D-8 countries to call for treating COVID-19 vaccine as a global public good while ensuring equity, affordability, enhanced production and timely supply to save lives.

“We must push back against vaccine nationalism and undue export restrictions. The global vaccine manufacturing companies must either speed up production or share their technology and expertise with developing countries,” the PM said.

Two Chinese and one Russian vaccine are currently being used in the public and private sectors. Pakistan is expecting the AstraZeneca vaccine under the COVAX programme but due to supply constraints, the country has not received its share of doses as yet.

The CoronaVac is a traditional vaccine, which can be stored at 2-8°C, which makes it ideal for countries like Pakistan where they do not have ultra-cold chain refrigerators.

Moreover, phase III clinical trials of a triple-dose Chinese vaccine, developed by the Anhui Zhifei Longcom Biopharmaceutical Company Ltd, are also underway in Lahore, Faisalabad, and other cities of Pakistan.