Drug Regulatory Authority of Pakistan (DRAP) is said to have approved the use of locally made ‘PakVac’ COVID-19 vaccine.
The single-dose PakVac is a license produced domestic version of CaninoBio COVID-19 vaccine of China and is being manufactured by National Institute of Health (NIH) Islamabad.
Earlier, SAPM on Health Dr Faisal Sultan had announced that PakVac had passed rigorous testing and the development will significantly bolster Pakistan’s vaccine supply line.
Congratulations to the NIH Pak team and its leadership for successful fill/finish (from concentrate) of the Cansino vaccine with the help of Cansino Bio Inc. China. The product has passed the rigorous internal QA testing. An imp step to help in our vaccine supply line pic.twitter.com/hrkySTJxPX
— Faisal Sultan (@fslsltn) May 24, 2021
It is to be noted that in trials that were conducted in Pakistan, CansinoBio COVID-19 vaccine showcased 74.8 efficacy rate at preventing symptomatic COVID-19 cases and 100% for preventing severe disease.
The development comes as Pakistan received first batch of bulk CansinoBio vaccine on May 7th earlier this month.
Vaccine Registration Starts For People Aged 19 And Above
Pakistan following the approval of NCOC a day earlier, has started the registration of people above 19 years of age for inoculation against COVID-19 coronavirus from Thursday (today).
The development comes as Pakistan initiated registration of people aged 30 and above for COVID-19 vaccination on May 16th earlier this month.
It is pertinent to know that Pakistan launched nation-wide COVID-19 vaccination programme on February 3rd after receiving 500,000 COVID-19 vaccine doses from China’s Sinopharm on February 1st.
The COVID-19 vaccination drive was launched simultaneously in federal capital along with provincial capitals namely Islamabad, Karachi, Lahore, Quetta and Peshawar.
People above the age of 30 can get themselves registered via sending a text message at 1166 or can visit (NIMS) website.
