Islamabad, 24 October 2022 (TDI): The United States (US) delivered five hundred thousand Covid-19 vaccines to Pakistan through COVAX, this week.
Till now over 80 million vaccines have been received by Pakistan from the US. These vaccines are provided as part of the COVID-19 Vaccines Global Access Initiative aka COVAX.
COVID-19 Vaccines Global Access Initiative
The Corona pandemic hit the world in 2020 and it became apparent that not only ending the global crisis is important but also providing access to vaccines to everyone in the world.
COVID-19 Vaccines Global Access Initiative or COVAX is one of the three pillars of Access COVID-19 Tools (ACT). This initiative was launched in April 2020 to make access to vaccines easy.
This COVAX initiative brought together governments, philanthropists, civil society, scientists, manufacturers, and global health organizations.
The main aim is to provide equitable and innovative access to covid vaccines to people and nations around the world.
COVAX is coordinated by Gavi, the Vaccine Alliance, the Coalition for Epidemic Preparedness Innovations (CEPI), and the WHO (World Health Organization).
The purpose and goal of this initiative are to provide effective as well as safe vaccines to countries. This has maximized the chances and opportunities for manufacturers to produce the required amount of vaccine doses.
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In this regard, this facility is established to maximize the chances of people from participating countries getting access to the world’s diverse and largest COVID-19 vaccine portfolio.
Pakistan and COVAX
Pakistan has been receiving Covid vaccines through the COVAX Facility. In the efforts to combat Covid-19, the US has been donating vaccines to Pakistan through the COVAX facility.
The number of vaccines that have so far arrived in Pakistan is nearly 80 million. Pakistan, like other countries of the world, had been hit by the pandemic in 2020.
In Pakistan, from 3 January 2020 to 21 October 2022, there have been 1,573,319 confirmed cases of COVID-19 with 30,623 deaths, reported to WHO. As of 11 October 2022, 313,046,883 vaccine doses have been administered.
