Vaccine procurement.

ALL eyes are on the government as it pledges to roll out the Covid-19 vaccination programme to about 80m citizens by the first quarter of 2021. On several occasions, officials have said that Pakistan will kick off the vaccine drive in phases in March and that the target population will be inoculated by November this year. Given that the government is yet to procure the vaccine from the multiple manufacturers it is engaged in discussions with, this is a challenging plan. At present, the government is in talks with multiple entities, including Chinese pharmaceutical companies Sinopharm and CanSino, whose vaccines have been under trial in Pakistan. Yesterday, an announcement from Drap indicated that the Oxford vaccine AstraZeneca, too, has been approved for procurement. Aside from these, Pakistan is also eligible to receive free vaccines under the Covax programme which procures the vaccine for less-developed countries with the goal of equitable distribution. While these are promising signs, the big test ahead for the government still looms as an official order has yet to be placed and March is less than a month and a half away. Given the global demand for vaccines, and the priorities of these pharma companies to supply to their own countries first, the government's pledge to start vaccinating the population in the first quarter appears ambitious. Even if...