MoU signed for follow-up trial of Covid vaccine.

LAHORE -- University of Health Sciences ( UHS) Vice Chancellor Prof Javed Akram has said that complete eradication of coronavirus cannot be achieved unless 75 per cent of the population is vaccinated.

'Our target in Pakistan should be to vaccinate 15 to 20 million people,' he said adding that the developed countries should provide vaccines to poor and developing nations on a priority basis.

He was addressing at the signing ceremony of a memorandum of understanding (MoU) between UHS and the Punjab Information Technology Board (PITB) on Thursday regarding the follow-up stage of Phase III trial of Chinese Covid-19 vaccine.

Prof Javed Akram said five billion people would have to be vaccinated for the complete eradication of the disease all over the world. He said it was a historic occasion that corona vaccine was being tested on humans in Pakistan.

'This trial has proved that there can be world-class research in Pakistan.'

He said a total of 18,000 people had volunteered for the phase III trial of the Chinese vaccine 'CanSino'. Among them more than 5,000 volunteers registered at the university.

He said vaccine research usually took around nine years to complete but given its urgent need, for the first time in history, the research period was shortened and completed within five months. He claimed that the results of this research exceeded his...