Qatar pledges one million Covid-19 vaccine doses to Pakistan
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Qatar's ambassador to Pakistan, Sheikh Saoud bin Abdulrahman bin Faisel Al Thani, has said that his country will provide one million Covid-19 vaccine doses to Pakistan.
He made this statement during a meeting with National Assembly Speaker Asad Qaiser on Monday in Islamabad, according to a handout from the National Assembly Secretariat.
The ambassador also applauded the Pakistan government’s strategy in "successfully" tackling the Covid-19 pandemic.
Pakistan has been grappling with vaccine shortages of late, even as 1.55 million doses of the Sinovac vaccine reached Islamabad from China on June 20.
The National Command and Control Centre (NCOC) had said in a statement that the batch was part of the "planned contracted quantity purchased from China".
On June 21, Pakistan had signed an agreement with Pfizer Pakistan under which it would receive 13 million doses of the American vaccine.
According to a press release, the agreement was signed by Pfizer Pakistan and the National Disaster Management Authority (NDMA) to supply 13 million doses of the Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine, which will be delivered during the course of 2021.
In the meeting on Tuesday, the Qatari ambassador said that parliamentary cooperation between the two countries would bring them closer and help them learn from each other’s experiences. NA speaker Asad Qaiser said that Pakistani expatriates in Qatar were enjoying a cordial atmosphere in the gulf country and their contribution in the form of remittances was a valuable addition to the socio-economic stability in Pakistan.
Last week, Special Assistant to Prime Minister on Health Dr Faisal Sultan shared a timeline for the vaccine supplies and claimed that the pressure in the system including local or distribution issues would be eased in a couple of days. He also added that one million doses were available in Pakistan.
Dr Sultan had told the media that two to three million Covid vaccine doses would arrive in Pakistan between June 23 and 30. He had also made it clear that 400,000 doses of the single-dose Pakvac (Cansino) vaccine would also be available by the end of this month.
