By: ChandrashekarBhat
By Chandrashekar Bhat
PAKISTAN has lifted a rule barring the use of AstraZeneca’s Covid-19 vaccine for people aged below 40 years, in a bid to help inoculate people who need to travel abroad for education or jobs, a health official said.
Pakistan, which relies heavily on remittances from its expatriate workers in Saudi Arabia, has primarily used Chinese vaccines Sinopharm, CanSinoBio and Sinovac in its inoculation drive and, till now, only used AstraZeneca for those above 40.
As the Saudi authorities have not approved the Chinese shots, people with only those vaccinations still need to quarantine, which is unaffordable for many, Faisal Sultan, a health adviser to the prime minister, said.
“From today, we have lifted the restriction for use of AstraZeneca for below 40 years,” Sultan told Geo news channel on Tuesday (15).
Saudi Arabia has approved four Covid-19 vaccines – AstraZeneca, Pfizer, Moderna and Johnson and Johnson – for arrivals wanting to avoid quarantine.
Pakistan has received 1.2 million doses of AstraZeneca under the Covax facility.
Sultan said the government is using diplomatic channels to see if Saudi Arabia would approve the Chinese vaccines in the future.
As of June 11, 1.3 per cent of Pakistan’s 220 million people were fully vaccinated and 3.8 per cent received at least one dose, mostly Sinopharm or Sinovac, official figures show.
Saudi Arabia is the largest source of foreign remittances to Pakistan, which depends on these funds to support its current account given the country’s yawning trade deficit.
In the current financial year, Pakistan received $7 billion (£4.9 bn) in remittances from Saudi Arabia, making up more than a quarter of overall remittances.
