ISLAMABAD: Pakistan's science minister said on Friday that all government-sponsored vaccination against the coronavirus will be free of charge.
Last week, Pakistan said it would purchase 1.2 million COVID-19 vaccine doses from China’s Sinopharm, in the first official confirmation of a vaccine purchase by the South Asian country as it battles a second wave of infections.
On Tuesday, the federal cabinet gave approval to the ministry of health to purchase the vaccine doses on an emergency basis.
"All Government sponsored vaccination will be free of cost," Science and Technology Minister Fawad Chaudhry said in a series of tweets.
He added that the government is negotiating vaccine purchase deals with "all companies," including Pfizer and AstraZeneca, and that in coming months more doses will be imported besides those from Sinopharm.
The Sinopharm vaccine is expected to be available in Pakistan in the first quarter of the year, the health ministry's spokesman, Sajid Hussain Shah, told Arab News earlier this week.
“We cannot give an exact timeline regarding the availability of the Sinopharm vaccine, but we are certain to have it in the first quarter of this year,” Shah said.
He added that a cabinet committee on the coronavirus vaccine was in touch with a number of manufacturers, including Russia, but a final decision had not been made on any producers other than Sinopharm.
