Today, Special Advisor to PM Imran Khan on health Dr. Faisal Sultan shared a piece of buoyant news regarding the Covid vaccine drive in Pakistan. He took to Twitter, writing:

Happy to share that in addition to the 500,000 doses of Sinopharm, almost 7 million doses of AstraZeneca to be made available in Q1 and given to the public free of cost!

Pakistan's de-facto federal health minister further added:

Pakistan’s vaccine drive starts next week, beginning with frontline healthcare workers.

He shared the press release on his Twitter account which showed that the government of Pakistan has managed to secure a total of 17 million AstraZeneca vaccines. Out of these 6-6.8 million doses will be made available in the first quarter of the year and the rest in the second quarter.

Federal minister for planning Asad Umar who also heads the National Command and Operations Center also shared this news on Twitter, he wrote:

Good news on covid vaccine front. Recieved letter from Covax of indicative supply of up to 17 million doses of AstraZeneca in 1st half of 2021. About 6 million will be received by March with delivery starting in Feb. We signed with Covax nearly 8 months back to ensure the availability.