ISLAMABAD (Reuters) – The AstraZeneca COVID-19 vaccine has been approved for emergency use in Pakistan, the health minister said Saturday, making it the first coronavirus vaccine to receive the green light for use in a country South Asia.
Pakistan, which is in the midst of a second wave of coronavirus diseases, has said it would receive more than a million doses of Sinopharm vaccine, but the Chinese vaccine has not yet been approved by the Pakistan Drug Control Authority (DRAP).
“DRAP approved the emergency use of AstraZeneca ‘s COVID vaccine,” the country’ s health minister, Faisal Sultan, told Reuters.
Pakistan is currently in talks with several vaccine manufacturers, and Sultan said the country would receive “in the range of tens of millions” of vaccine doses under an agreement with CanSinoBio in China.
The vaccine company’s current Ad5-nCoV COVID-19 candidate is nearing completion of phase III clinical trials in Pakistan.
Pakistan reported 2,432 new coronavirus diseases and 45 deaths on Friday, bringing the total number of cases to more than 516,000 and nearly 11,000 deaths.