China’s PLA delivers batch of Covid vaccines to Pakistan Army

PTI, Feb 7, 2021, 7:28 PM IST

Chinese military delivered a batch of COVID-19 vaccines to the Pakistan Army on Sunday, days after Islamabad received 500,000 doses of the coronavirus vaccine from its all-weather ally Beijing. The People’s Liberation Army (PLA) said in a statement that the Pakistan Army has become the first foreign military to receive the COVID-19 vaccine aid from the Chinese military.

The statement, however, did not mention the number of vaccines supplied to the Pakistan Army. The PLA also delivered a batch of COVID-19 vaccines to the Cambodian military after receiving a request for it.

The Cambodian Army was among the first batch of the foreign military to receive COVID-19 vaccine aid from the Chinese military, the state-run Xinhua news agency reported. The vaccines delivered to the Pakistan Army are reportedly in addition to the five lakh doses provided by China to Pakistan. Pakistan on Monday received the first batch of 500,000 doses of the coronavirus vaccine from China, as the country was gearing up to kick start its immunisation drive.

The move comes as the number of COVID-19 cases in Pakistan reached 554,474. With 53 new deaths, the number of fatalities has gone up to 11,967, according to the Ministry of National Health Services. China has granted conditional approval for its second COVID-19 vaccine, ahead of the expected emergency approval from the WHO for two of its jabs that would enable the country to step-up global supplies of the shots.

Sinovac Biotech announced on Saturday that CoronaVac, an inactivated vaccine candidate against COVID-19, received authorisation from the National Medical Products Administration for conditional mass use in China. It is the second locally made vaccine to be given conditional approval. Beijing authorised the state-owned Sinopharm’s vaccine in December.