The Cabinet Committee has decided to initially purchase 1.2 million doses of the vaccine from the Chinese company Sinopharm

Shujaat Hamza/DNA

ISLAMABAD: Pakistan is expected to get the first COVID-19 vaccine shipment by the end of this month, Parliamentary Secretary for Ministry of National Health Services Dr Nausheen Hamid said.

Dr Hamid said that the government was “urgently” drafting a database of all public and private medical workers to get them inoculated in the first phase.

However, the publication did not specify which vaccine and from which country Pakistan would procure it.

A week earlier, science minister Fawad Chaudhry said Pakistan would purchase 1.2 million doses of coronavirus vaccine from China’s Sinopharm.

“The Cabinet Committee has decided to initially purchase 1.2 million doses of the vaccine from the Chinese company Sinopharm, which will be provided free of cost to frontline workers in the first quarter of 2021,” the science minister said on Twitter.

Last month, China had approved the COVID-19 vaccine developed by an affiliate of state-backed pharmaceutical giant Sinopharm, its first approved shot for general public use.