Pakistan to receive 500,000 vaccine doses as gift from China

Pakistan is set to receive half a million doses of Covid-19 vaccine from neighbour and ally China this month, a top official said on Thursday, despite doubts about the efficacy of Beijing's product.

"I want to give the nation the good news that China has promised to immediately provide 500,000 doses of vaccine to Pakistan by January 31," said Foreign Minister Shah Mahmood Qureshi.

Qureshi spoke to his Chinese counterpart Wang Yi as pressure mounted on the government to place orders for the import of one of the available vaccines as the pandemic continues to rage in the country.

The Drug Regulatory Authority of Pakistan (DRAP) last week approved the use of two vaccines, those produced by European manufacturer AstraZeneca and China's Sinopharm.

Medical experts have raised doubts about the efficacy of the Chinese vaccine, as Sinopharm has so far not made public the outcome of its stage 3 clinical trial.

The government is leaving the private sector to import the AstraZeneca vaccine, which might take months, according to local media reports.

China and Pakistan share a border and have been staunch political allies for decades.

China is currently working on 62-billion-dollars worth of road and rail infrastructure projects in Pakistan.

The work, known as the China-Pakistan Economic Corridor (CPEC), a collection of infrastructure projects related to Beijing's ambitious Belt and Road Initiative, aims to give China a land and sea route to markets in the Middle East, Europe and Africa.