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DANIAL KHAN Islamabad “Last year Pakistan launched the locally produced single-dose CanSino COVID-19 vaccine with the help of China. Renamed as PakVac.

It’s been almost a year since Pakistan signed a deal with CansinoBio, with aims to process and package the vaccine locally. The national institute of health in Islamabad formulated, processed and packaged the vaccine. CGTN’s Danial Khan visited the facility to see how Pakistan’s vaccine efforts are going.

DANIAL KHAN Islamabad “Last year Pakistan launched the locally produced single-dose CanSino COVID-19 vaccine with the help of China. Renamed as PakVac, the vaccine has been prepared and packed at the state-run National Institute of Health, under the supervision of Chinese experts.”

CanSinBio had transferred some of its production technology to Pakistan and also helped supervise operations.

AAMER IKRAM Executive Director, National Institute of Health “A lot of guidance coming, the Chinese teams coming to Pakistan, staying here for quite some time, guiding us through those initial days and then later on once we started getting the concentrate, again the Chinese teams are here to see each and every step of the vaccine manufacturing, so it’s quite a tedious process, much challenging than I thought initially, but we have been quite successful in co-producing with CanSinoBio.”

Experts say, the local production is a milestone in the journey to achieve self-reliance, as the transfer of technology could help Pakistan to eventually manufacture the vaccine.

GHAZALA PARVEEN Chief, Biological Production Division, NIH “In the beginning our production of PakVac started from approximately one million doses per month, but now we have extended to more than three million doses per month.”

Officials say PakVac will save around 25 percent on vaccine cost, which according to government figures amounts to $250 million so far.

Pakistan, which has a population of over 220 million people, faced initial vaccination hesitancy and a shortage of vaccine supplies, but with China’s help and assistance met the shortfall.

AAMER IKRAM Executive Director, National Institute of Health “My words may fall short of what China has done in this crisis period, as always. Extremely grateful to the people of China and the government of China for all that they have done. it started from the very initial days in the form of PPEs, the teams coming down, sharing their hands down experiences, then moving on to all the support, and more so in the form of the vaccine as well, because they donated the vaccine when it was direly needed within china, but they supported throughout the initial days and then moving on it continued and then getting vaccine on payment, not being easy throughout the world, so with all those things I think it talks volumes about the relations of the two countries. And being neighbors we put up a robust fight to COVID collectively.”

Pakistan’s biotech and pharmaceutical industry is underdeveloped and the country produces few vaccines.

But with the Chinese cooperation, many believe that Pakistan would not only become self-sufficient in the fight against COVID-19 but also reduce its dependence on vaccine import. Danial Khan, CGTN, Islamabad.

Source: CGTN

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