International

A private company in Pakistan will begin receiving shipments of China's CanSino Biologics Covid-19 vaccine this week for commercial sale, an official at the company's local partner told Reuters on Monday. Pakistan, one of the first countries in the world to allow private imports of Covid-19 vaccines, has already received a batch of the Russian Sputnik vaccine for commercial sale. "We expect the first 10,000 doses to come on March 25, and 100,000 next month and 200,000 the month after," said Hassan Abbas, an official of AJ Pharma, CanSino's local partner, which will be importing the vaccine. Abbas said the commercial name of the vaccine would be "Convidecia". Five hospitals that took part in clinical trials for the vaccine will be provided the doses for commercial sale, he added. Pakistan is in the process of vaccinating frontline healthcare workers and citizens over the age of 60 free of charge using Sinopharm doses donated by China. The commercial administration of vaccines is yet to begin as the government settles pricing issues for the private sector, after reversing its decision to allow uncapped prices. CanSino Biologics and Pakistan's Health Minister Faisal Sultan did not immediately respond to requests for comment. Pakistan is in the midst of a sharp rise in Covid-19 infections, and on Saturday reported the highest number of positive cases in day since July last year.

Pakistani Prime Minister Imran Khan tested positive for Covid-19 yesterday, two days after receiving his first vaccine dose, government officials said, urging people not to be deterred from getting vaccinated. Pakistan’s vaccination roll-out has been met with widespread vaccine hesitancy, and Khan’s positive test could serve as a setback to the inoculation drive in the country of 220 million people, health experts said. Health Minister Faisal Sultan said Khan was “in good health” with a mild cough and fever and was self-isolating at home, adding the 68-year-old premier had likely been infected much before he got his first vaccine shot on Thursday. Sultan told local television people should not link the prime minister’s coronavirus infection with the vaccine, which takes times to build antibodies. While it was not clear which vaccine Khan was given, the vaccine produced by China National Pharmaceutical Group (Sinopharm) is the only one available in Pakistan. Khan expressed concern after his positive test result that it could deter ordinary people from getting vaccinated, his adviser Shahbaz Gill told a local television. He said Khan, who has been seen attending regular gatherings — often without wearing a mask, had mild symptoms. Asad Umar, the minister in-charge of the country’s Covid-19 operations, said in a tweet it was “certain that PM had been infected prior to vaccination”. “So please do vaccinate,” Umar added. Vaccine hesitancy is common in Pakistan, and earlier this month, a poll showed that hesitancy was also high among healthcare workers — particularly over Chinese vaccines. Khan’s positive test comes as Pakistan sees a steep rise in infections. According to numbers released by government, 3,876 people tested positive in the last 24 hours — the highest number of daily infections since early July — taking the total number of infections in the country past 620,000. There were also 42 more deaths, taking the total to 13,799.  India’s Prime Minister Narendra Modi wished his Pakistani counterpart a “speedy recovery” from Covid-19, in a new sign of a thaw between the neighbours. Since agreeing to halt hostilities on their disputed Kashmir border last month, the nuclear-armed rivals have shown signs of wanting to improve relations. Modi used the announcement that the 68-year-old Khan had tested positive for the coronavirus to make his gesture. “Best wishes to Prime Minister Imran Khan for a speedy recovery from COVID-19,” the Hindu nationalist leader said on Twitter. Modi regularly uses his rallies to lash out at Pakistan. There have been no reported shellings on the Kashmir Line of Control, as the disputed frontier is known, since the accord came into effect on February 24. Khan has since called for increased trade with India, while Pakistan’s army chief General Qamar Javed said this week that the neighbours should “bury the past”.

Pakistan Prime Minister Imran Khan has tested positive for Covid-19, the country's health minister said on Saturday, two days after the premier got his vaccination. Khan is "self isolating at home," said minister Faisal Sultan in a tweet, without giving further details as to whether other people who have been in contact with Khan would also be isolating. Khan, 68, has been holding regular and frequent meetings lately, including attending a security conference held in capital Islamabad that was attended by a large number of people. He addressed the conference without wearing a mask, and attended another gathering to inaugurate a housing project for poor people in a similar fashion on Friday. Khan was vaccinated on Thursday. The South Asian nation of 220 million is seeing a sharp rise in coronavirus infections. According to numbers released by government, 3,876 people tested positive in the last 24 hours - the highest number of daily infections since early July - taking the total number of infections in the country past 620,000. There were also 42 more deaths, taking the total to 13,799. Pakistan launched vaccinations for the general public on March 10, starting with elderly people after seeing a poor response from frontline health workers. Chinese Sinopharm and CanSinoBio, Oxford-AstraZeneca and Russia's Sputnik V vaccines have been approved for emergency use in Pakistan.

Pakistani activist Malala Yousafzai, who won the Nobel Peace Prize as a teenager after surviving a Taliban assassination attempt, has signed a deal with Apple TV+ that will see her produce dramas and documentaries that focus on women and children. The multi-year partnership would ‘draw on her ability to inspire people around the world’, the company said in a statement, adding that content would also include animation and children's series. ‘I'm grateful for the opportunity to support women, young people, writers, and artists in reflecting the world as they see it,’ the 23-year-old was quoted as saying. Yousafzai earned the wrath of the Taliban as a 10-year-old in rural northwest Pakistan when she began campaigning for education rights for girls. Yousafzai drew international attention with a series of blogs and articles she wrote about everyday life and hopes for a better future, but her fame incensed the Taliban, whose leadership ordered her murder. In October 2012, a Taliban assassin shot the then-15-year-old as she rode home on a bus from school. The bullet struck near her left eye, went through her neck and lodged in her shoulder. She recovered after months of treatment at home and abroad before co-writing a best-selling memoir titled ‘I am Malala’, which drew even more international attention. Yousafzai was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize as a 17-year-old in 2014, sharing the award with Kailash Satyarthi, a children's rights activist from India. She graduated from Britain's Oxford University last year and has since created a digital publication for girls and women, and formed her own TV production company. ‘I believe in the power of stories to bring families together, forge friendships, build movements, and inspire children to dream,’ she was quoted as saying in Monday's statement.  

Nobel Peace Prize winner Malala Yousafzai is expanding her partnership with Apple Inc to produce dramas, children’s series, animation and documentaries that will air on the tech giant’s streaming service, the two said yesterday. Malala, 23, and her new production company Extracurricular join Apple TV+’s growing roster of content creators including Oprah Winfrey, Steven Spielberg, Will Smith, Octavia Spencer and Jennifer Aniston, the iPhone maker said in a blog post on its website on International Women’s Day. “I hope that through this partnership, I will be able to bring new voices to this platform, to this stage,” Malala told Reuters in an interview. “I hope that through me, more young people and girls will watch these shows, get inspired.” Apple produced a documentary about Malala in 2015 and teamed up with her Malala Fund in 2018 to promote secondary education to girls across the globe. In 2009 at age 12, Malala blogged under a pen name for the BBC about living under the rule of the Pakistani Taliban. In 2012 she survived being shot in the head by a Taliban gunman for campaigning against its attempts to deny women education. In 2014, she became the youngest-ever Nobel Peace Prize laureate at age 17. In 2018 she launched Assembly, a digital publication for girls and young women available on Apple News. She graduated from Oxford University in June. “I believe in storytelling because it has been part of my life, it was my story that inspired so many people around the world to realise that not all girls have access to education,” she said..

Pakistani Prime Minister Imran Khan won a vote of confidence from parliament yesterday in a session marked by an opposition boycott of the vote and clashes between government supporters and opposition leaders outside the parliament building. Khan was able to secure 178 votes, against the 172 required to win confidence in the 340-seat National Assembly through an open ballot. He had won 176 following the 2018 general elections to become prime minister.  He volunteered to seek parliament’s confidence after the government’s finance minister lost a high-profile Senate seat election earlier in the week. Opposition parties boycotted the session, saying the Senate seat defeat was enough to show that Khan no longer enjoyed the confidence of the house, and the vote of confidence was unnecessary. “An illegal session is being called to cheat the Pakistani people,” Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz (PML-N) leader Shahid Khaqan Abbasi told media outside the parliament building. Opposition leaders were protesting and speaking to media outside parliament when a crowd of government supporters surrounded and attacked them, local media footage showed. The footage showed an attack on Abbasi, a female opposition leader and an opposition senator. Khan, who came to power in 2018 after a fiery campaign vowing to clean up corruption, accused the opposition of horse-trading and buying some of his party’s parliamentarians in a bid to ward off graft investigations. Speaking following the confidence vote, the prime minister accused the opposition parties of “plundering national wealth” during their times in office. “This was a decade of darkness used by the two parties to ruin national institutions,” he added. He also announced electoral reforms, saying: “We are doing things; we are fully engaged with overseas Pakistanis so they can cast votes, and secondly, we are bringing electronic machines.” “We are bringing this system so that the one who loses, accepts defeat.” According to the breakdown, 155 PTI lawmakers voted in favour of the premier. Besides, seven lawmakers from the Muttahida Qaumi Movement-Pakistan, five each from the Balochistan Awami Party and the Pakistan Muslim League-Quaid, three from Grand Democratic Alliance and one each from the Awami Muslim League and the Jamhoori Watan Party cast their votes supporting the prime minister. Independent candidate Aslam Bhotani also reposed confidence in the premier through his vote. The PM thanked government lawmakers, including his allies, for staying by his side through thick and thin. He commended the way his party reacted after the Islamabad Senate seat upset, saying that this experience had made them tougher. “To my parliamentarians and team, I thank you. Yesterday evening when I saw you, I realised that you were really hurt when we lost the Senate election of Hafeez Shaikh. “But when I saw you, I felt very good because I saw a team in you and our team will get stronger. Because God will test your faith again and again,” the prime minister said. The premier said he knew of many individual legislators who tried hard to attend the vote today but could not make it as some were facing health issues. “I thank all of you,” he said. The premier said the government knew that money was being used in the run up to the Senate elections for the buying and selling of candidates, yet the Election Commission said a “great election” was carried out. “I was more saddened by this, if this election was carried out well by you (Election Commission) then who knows what is a bad election,” said the prime minister cryptically. Khan said he was “surprised” that the Election Commission had said it was a free institution in its press release when he [the premier] hadn’t said anything about their independence in his address to the nation after the Senate election. “I request the Election Commission to get a briefing from our [intelligence] agencies on what goes on behind the scenes in elections,” the PM said, referring to the buying and selling that takes place behind the scenes. He felt it was embarrassing how the way elections were held and named Pakistan People’s Party co-chair Asif Ali Zardari and PML-N supremo Nawaz Sharif, saying they were “thieves” who were blackmailing his government for an NRO — a euphemism in the political lexicon to denote let-off in corruption cases against them. He said Zardari was commonly referred to in phrases such as “one Zardari trumps all (aik Zardari sab pe bhaari)” and “Mr 10 per cent” because of his corrupt practices. The PM further said Sharif had faked sickness to go abroad so that he could avoid the legal consequences of his corruption and theft. “These people even tried to sabotage Financial Action Task Force legislation and had linked passing of the FATF legislation to amendments in the National Accountability Bureau law,” the PM said, adding they had put the country at stake to get rid of corruption cases against them. He criticised Yusuf Raza Gilani, who beat ruling Pakistan Tehreek-i-Insaf’s Hafeez Shaikh in the recent Senate polls last week, as one of the most corrupt politicians in the country. “Just look at his (Gilani’s) wealth and assets before he became the PM and do a comparison with his assets after he became the PM. The picture will be clear,” Imran said. He said future generations of the country can only be saved if the menace of corruption is removed. “We are on a way to economic recovery. The current account is improving constantly and now even the rupee is strengthening against the dollar without government intervention,” he said.

Pakistani Prime Minister Imran Khan won a vote of confidence from parliament on Saturday in a session marked by an opposition boycott of the vote and clashes between government supporters and opposition leaders outside the parliament building. Khan was able to secure 178 votes, against the 172 required to win confidence, the speaker of the house announced. Khan, who became prime minister following the 2018 general elections, volunteered to seek parliament's confidence after the government’s finance minister lost a high-profile Senate seat election earlier in the week. Opposition parties boycotted the session, saying the Senate seat defeat was enough to show that Khan no longer enjoyed the confidence of the house, and the vote of confidence was unnecessary. "An illegal session is being called to cheat the Pakistani people," former prime minister and opposition leader Shahid Khaqan Abbasi told media outside the parliament building. Opposition leaders were protesting and speaking to media outside parliament when a crowd of government supporters surrounded and attacked them, local media footage showed. The footage showed an attack on Abbasi, a female opposition leader and an opposition senator.

Pakistan Prime Minister Imran Khan has said that he will seek a vote of confidence from parliament tomorrow after his finance minister lost his bid for a Senate seat. Khan and his government had been expected to win the indirect election on the seat, given their coalition’s numerical superiority in the lower house of parliament, the electoral college for the vote. “I’m going to seek a confidence motion a day after tomorrow,” Khan said in a televised address to the nation yesterday. The Senate is the upper house of Pakistan’s bicameral parliament. He said the vote of confidence would be an open ballot in which members of his party and his allies were welcome to vote against him if they no longer had confidence in him. “This is your democratic right ... just raise your hands that you don’t have confidence, and I will go into the opposition (benches),” he said. The Senate election a day earlier was a secret ballot and members of the ruling coalition are widely believed to have voted against his candidate, Finance Minister Abdul Hafiz Sheikh. He alleged that the opposition parties had gained those votes through unfair means. The opposition denies the charge. Khan’s party, the Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaaf (PTI), became the largest party in the Senate in Wednesday’s poll. However, although it gained ground, interim results yesterday showed that his ruling coalition was still a few seats short of a clear majority.

A 19-year-old student who shot to fame after her five-second video went viral on social media across the subcontinent, hopes that numerous renditions of her monologue will translate into more dialogue between rival neighbours India and Pakistan. The short video shot by Dananeer Mobeen in the Nathaigali mountains of northern Pakistan and uploaded onto Instagram shows a group of youngsters enjoying themselves by a roadside. Swinging around the device she is filming on, Mobeen gestures behind her and says in Urdu: “This is our car, this is us, and this is our party taking place.” Seemly innocuous, she deliberately mispronounces the English word “party” as “pawri” to poke fun at South Asians who adopt Western accents. It immediately struck a chord in both India and Pakistan, sparking top trending hashtags on social media, and garnering millions of views and hundreds of spin-offs. “It was the most random video. I initially had no intention of uploading it,” Mobeen said, expressing surprise at how viral it had gone and adding the trend showed the power and reach of social media. “Pawri” monologue renditions have been used by police in India and the Delhi Commission for Women in their social media outreach campaigns. In one video, two Indian soldiers deployed in snowy mountains give it their own spin with “This is us, this is our gun, and we are patrolling here”, while popular Bollywood actors Ranveer Singh and Deepika Padukone each did a version that also went viral. Indian dairy company Amul, known for inculcating trendy takes on current issues in its advertisements, did a “this is our pav-tea” version, in a nod to a popular bread snack eaten with tea. Even politicians jumped on the bandwagon, with a leader from India’s ruling Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) using the catchy hook at an election rally. “I’m honoured and grateful for all the love across the border,” said Mobeen, expressing her happiness at fostering some rare friendly cross-border dialogue. India and Pakistan, both nuclear-armed nations, have fought three wars and often had tense relations since gaining independence in 1947. Relations had most recently soured over developments in the northern region of Kashmir, which both countries control in parts but claim in full. Last week, their militaries released a rare joint statement saying that they had agreed to observe a ceasefire along the disputed Kashmir border, after exchanging fire hundreds of times over past months. Since the video went viral, Mobeen said she has been inundated with acting and modelling offers, along with requests for product endorsements. Instead, she says she aspires to join Pakistan’s foreign services.

Police in Pakistan’s largest city, Karachi, are deploying an armed rollerblading unit to curb theft and harassment on its teeming streets. Gliding in a circle with their weapons pointed inwards, and lifting and lowering the guns in unison, the 20-member Special Security Unit (SSU) clad in black undergoes rigorous training. “We felt we needed to come up with an innovative approach to control street crime,” said Farrukh Ali, chief of the unit, explaining that officers on rollerblades could more easily chase thieves on motorcycles through the city of 20mn. Ali conceded that rollerblading police could not be deployed across many parts of Karachi due to the poor road conditions and uneven footpaths, but said they would be sent to public places with a higher incidence of theft and harassment. “This is just the beginning,” said Aneela Aslam, a policewoman on the unit. “This rollerblading will really benefit us. With this training, we can reach narrow alleys very quickly where it is usually difficult to go.” Safety concerns were raised when initial footage of the Karachi unit’s training showed officers carrying heavier weapons, but Ali explained that the unit would only carry handguns, reducing the risk of bullets ricocheting. The rollerblading police officers – who follow in the footsteps of similar units in Europe and elsewhere – are expected to begin officially next month, but they were recently spotted outside the venue of the Pakistan Super League cricket tournament. And they have already begun patrolling Karachi’s bustling beachfront. “Seeing them here in clean uniforms since the morning gives us a sense of security, as even in daytime, snatchings occur here,” said pedestrian Mohamed Azeem.

Protesters calling for an end to enforced disappearances in Pakistan’s Balochistan province ended a week long sit-in in the capital yesterday, after an assurance that Prime Minister Imran Khan will meet them next month. Balochistan, where separatist militants have waged an insurgency against the state, has long been plagued by “enforced disappearances”. Families say men are picked up by the security forces, disappear often for years, and are sometimes found dead, with no official explanation. “We don’t have any big hopes from this government, but the way they have reassured us, we also have decided to give them a chance,” Sammi Baloch, who has been searching for her father Deen Mohamed since 2009, told Reuters. She and other families have protested across Pakistan for years to little avail. The Islamabad protesters – 10 families of missing men and around a hundred supporters – said that they will return if assurances are not met. Security officials say many of Balochistan’s so-called disappeared have links to the separatists. Pakistan’s military and human rights ministry did not respond to requests for comment for this story, including questions about specific family members sought by the protesters. For one week, protesters held up photos of missing relatives under the watchful eyes of police surrounding them. Among them was 60-year-old Baz Khatoon, who clutched a stack of news reports and court filings about her son, Rashid Hussain Brohi. She believes he was detained in Dubai in December 2018, was flown to Pakistan six months later, and then vanished without a trace. Khatoon said her son moved to Dubai to be safe in 2017 after three male relatives, including his father, had turned up dead after being taken away by security forces over the years. “Just tell us our kids are safe, put them in jail, we don’t have any problem with that,” Khatoon said. “If they were in jail at least we would know they are safe, at least I could take some food there for my son, or a blanket to keep him warm, or a change of clothes.”

A Pakistan zoo once home to what was dubbed the “world’s loneliest elephant”, and notorious for housing animals in cramped concrete enclosures, has launched an ambitious $7.5mn makeover plan. Animal rights activists had campaigned against the plight of Islamabad Zoo’s biggest attraction – a 35-year-old bull named Kaavan, the last remaining Asian elephant in the country – which had lived alone since the death of his mate eight years earlier. Kaavan was transferred to Cambodia late last year in a blaze of publicity after his plight caught the attention of US superstar Cher, who helped raise funds for the jumbo relocation. While the elephant now has hundreds of acres to roam alongside dozens of companions in northern Cambodia, his last years in Pakistan were anything but tranquil. Islamabad Zoo was bereft of any natural vegetation and many animals there developed classic caged behaviour, such as constant swaying or repetitive pacing. Established in 1978 and eventually growing to 30 acres, keepers struggled to care for the zoo’s residents. Conditions were so bad that a High Court judge last year ordered it closed, and every animal to be relocated – an exercise in itself that ended in tragedy. Two lions died during their relocation when zookeepers attempted to pry them from their pen by setting ablaze piles of hay. Pakistan’s climate change ministry has now taken charge of the zoo’s rehabilitation, with plans to establish a vastly improved conservation centre. “We have temporarily shifted some 380 different animals – including monkeys, nilgai (antelope), zebras and bears – to different sanctuaries within and outside Pakistan,” said Waqar Zakriya of the Islamabad Wildlife Management Board (IWMB). “They will all be brought back – not to be kept in captivity, but in a national park in a natural habitat.”  The centre will also include facilities to treat and rehabilitate injured indigenous wildlife – the first of its kind in the country. The initiative is “brilliant and extraordinary”, said Rab Nawaz, the director of World Wide Fund for Nature in Pakistan. Mistreatment of animals – in zoos or for entertainment – is commonplace in Pakistan, but attitudes are changing. Wildlife authorities are also pushing for new laws targeting poachers, who regularly trap and traffic birds, monkeys, and even black bears, said IWMB chairwoman Rina Saeed. Kaavan’s departure proved bittersweet for at least one man connected to the zoo – his last keeper, Imran Hussain. He was hired and specially trained last year when Kaavan’s plight became internationally known, but quickly formed a bond with his pachyderm pal. “I feel something breaking inside me when I come to the zoo and see his empty cage,” he told AFP. “He used to welcome me with a loud trumpet and by raising up his trunk every morning. “He would throw water over me to express his pleasure – and anger.” Still, he knows the beast is now in a better place. “I have seen video clips of Kaavan ... he looks very happy,” he said. “I pray to God for his long life.”

The Pakistan Navy’s seventh biennial multinational “Aman” (peace) exercise in Pakistani waters aimed at fostering international co-operation to fight piracy, terrorism and other crimes threatening maritime security concluded yesterday. Around 45 navies, including those of the United States, Britain and China, took part in the Arabian Sea exercise with ships and observers. “The purpose of this exercise to bring regional and extra-regional navies on one platform and conduct exercises to enhance intra-operability in addition to counter terrorist threat and the crime which are happening in maritime domain,” Commodore Khan Mehmood Asif told media. In the sea phase of the six-day exercise, navies from various nations conducted exercises together against terrorist and piracy threat in the maritime domain, he added.

A Pakistani lab will soon receive Russia's Sputnik V Covid-19 vaccine for commercial sale, a company official said on Sunday, making Pakistan one of the first countries to market shots privately as it scrambles to secure supplies. Despite concerns over fairness and higher prices, Islamabad agreed this week to allow the commercial import and sale of vaccines without price caps, in contrast to most countries, which are importing and administering vaccines through government channels. "We are told the first shipment is expected within the next week," Chughtai Lab director Omar Chughtai told Reuters, adding it would be receiving several thousand doses. Pakistan's decision to allow private sales of vaccine without a price cap in a lower-income country of 220 million people has faced criticism. Former health minister Zafar Mirza, while praising government efforts to procure and distribute free vaccines, said that avoiding a price cap for private sales "will deepen inequality in society at a time when there is a need to have widespread coverage." The government launched a vaccination drive this month with 500,000 doses of the Sinopharm vaccine donated by longtime ally China. But aside from the donated Chinese doses, Islamabad has not completed any deals to buy vaccines. Sputnik V is one of four vaccines approved for emergency use in Pakistan, in addition to those by China's Sinopharm and CanSinoBio, and the AstraZeneca-Oxford University shot. Chughtai Lab aims to import the others as well, but Sputnik V was the first to become available, Chughtai said. Health Minister Faisal Sultan told Reuters in a message he was "not directly aware" of the deal. Chughtai declined to specify import costs or prices but said the price would "appear inflated" compared with what has been reported for Sputnik V globally, given the smaller volume it was planning to sell relative to global procurement. Sputnik V's developers have said the two-dose vaccine would be sold at $10 per dose. "Internationally there is very high demand, and I would not be surprised if the price points are higher today," Chughtai said, adding that prices will come down over the next three to four months as more vaccines become available. "The biggest challenge around the vaccines globally right now is allocation to specific countries," he said. Chughtai said his Lahore-based pathology lab had turned down "grey market" offers from people in various countries who had "extra vaccine" not officially meant for re-export. The lab is importing Sputnik V through Pakistani firm Ali Gohar Pharmaceuticals Pvt and the Russian Direct Investment Fund, which is responsible for marketing the vaccine abroad. In a filing with the Pakistan Stock Exchange on Feb. 15, Ali Gohar Pharmaceuticals Pvt said it was the exclusive distributor of the Sputnik V vaccine in the country, but "has not entered into a supply agreement with any hospital or diagnostic centre" either "directly or indirectly." The statement added that the firm would only make such an agreement "after completion of all necessary legal formalities and which duly conforms and fully complies with the directions issued by the relevant regulatory authorities." Chughtai said he expected an official government decree in the next two days specifying rules on inoculations by the private sector, including on registration of recipients. The company expects to receive shipments every four to five days.

Pakistan is to allow private companies to import coronavirus (Covid-19) vaccines and has agreed to exempt such imports from price caps, according to documents reviewed by Reuters, even as the nation scrambles to secure supplies. The documents show the National Health Services, Regulations and Co-ordination division of the health ministry had sought a special cabinet exemption to allow for such imports, while excluding the imported vaccines from the strict price cap regime that is typically applied to all drug sales within the country. The documents show the cabinet of Prime Minister Imran Khan has approved the proposal, which also sought suspension of some related regulations for six months to let the private sector determine the maximum price caps. Faisal Sultan, the health minister, confirmed the cabinet decision to Reuters, saying that it was an “approval of the principle that private sector can import” and drive the pricing due to “the non-availability of a reference price”. The Drug Regulatory Authority of Pakistan (Drap) did not respond to a request for comment. The decision is significant as Pakistan, a nation of 220mn, has yet to secure substantive volumes of vaccines from any company and only this month launched a vaccination drive with 500,000 doses of Sinopharm’s vaccine donated by long-time ally China. Frontline health workers are being given the shots on priority. Sultan said that Pakistan still planned to inoculate its population for free and only a “small minority” who wished to pay for the shots would have that option in the open market. “Only those who wish to get it via private sector will pay anything,” he said. “Personally, my assessment is that when the vaccines are available and we have market competition, that will automatically set the prices.” Pakistan, which has recorded more than 550,000 cases of Covid-19 and more than 12,000 deaths, is still largely reliant on the Gavi/WHO Covax vaccine initiative that is aiming to provide shots to poorer nations. Pakistan has yet to receive any of the 17mn doses it is expected to get through the Covax initiative. Sultan said last month that the country could receive “in the range of tens of millions” of a CanSino Biologics vaccine under an agreement with the Chinese firm. But there remains no clarity on a timeline. CanSinoBIO on Monday released interim efficacy results of its multi-country vaccine trial, which included Pakistan, showing 65.7% efficacy in preventing symptomatic cases and a 90.98% success rate in stopping severe disease. Experts have questioned the decision to allow commercial imports and no price caps. The doctor leading the CanSinoBIO trial at Islamabad’s Shifa Hospital, Ejaz A Khan, called on authorities to review the move as the government’s procurement for public use seemed inadequate. “Not setting a price limit for the private sector opens up the market for misuse,” he told Reuters. The government’s decision revolves around a rationale of not being able to find any reference price. “No information was available; about import prices of vaccines from different sources,” says the document, adding: “In view of the above factual position, it might not be possible to fix a maximum retail price.” Sultan said that it would not go unchecked. “We will continue monitoring the prices and obviously we will see their procurement price to see if there is any over-pricing, and the government always retains the right to intervene if there is any predatory practice.” Nasim Salahuddin, the head of department of infectious diseases at Karachi’s Indus Hospital, questioned the need to involve the private sector at this stage, pointing out that there had been a slow uptake in administering already available vaccines since the drive started on February 3. According to government records, only 27,228 healthcare workers have so far been vaccinated. Sinopharm, AstraZeneca and Sputnik V are the only three candidates to be approved for emergency use in Pakistan.

Pakistani military helicopters continued to search for three missing climbers on the world’s second highest mountain K2 yesterday, as hope of their survival faded rapidly. Mohamed Ali Sadpara, 45, of Pakistan, John Snorri, 47, of Iceland, and Juan Pablo Mohr, 33, of Chile, were last seen on Friday around noon at what is considered the most difficult part of the climb: the Bottleneck, a steep and narrow gully just 300m shy of the 8,611m (28,251’) high K2. The spot is just above the ceiling of helicopters, which have been searching for three days now. Sadpara, one of Pakistan’s most celebrated climbers who had ascended eight of the world’s highest mountains, was accompanied by his 20-year-old son Sajid Sadpara, who was told by his father to climb down when an oxygen mask he was using malfunctioned. Sajid told repoters on Sunday that he waited overnight at a camp just below the Bottleneck, believing the three had summitted and would be coming down. “I kept the light of my tent on at night, thinking they would see it when they return,” he said. “I think if they search for the bodies it makes sense to continue the operation, but their chances of surviving, if you are at 8,000 (metres) in winter for two or three days, a person’s chances of surviving are next no none.” It was the group’s second attempt at climbing K2 this winter, in a season that has already seen three other climbers die in the area. Bulgarian Atanas Skatov’s body was picked up by a helicopter on February 5, and officials believe he fell while trying to climb K2. Last month a team of 10 Nepali sherpas became the first people to summit K2 in the winter. The same day, Spanish climber Sergio Mingote, 49, died after he fell down a crevasse attempting to make his way down to Base Camp. And last month American Alex Goldfarb-Rumyantzev died trying to scale nearby Pastore Peak in preparation for attempting to summit 8,047m (26,400’) high Broad Peak. In 2008, 11 climbers died on K2 over the course of two days.

Pakistan began administering a Chinese-made Covid-19 vaccine to frontline health workers yesterday, but the country is still months away from a mass roll-out. Beijing has donated about 500,000 doses of the Sinopharm vaccine — which has yet to be fully approved by China’s health authorities — with a further million expected by the end of the month. The country of 220mn has recorded more than half a million coronavirus cases, with around 11,000 deaths, but limited testing suggests true figures are likely much higher. Lawmaker Nausheen Hamid, who leads parliament’s health committee, said a first phase of vaccinations would prioritise health workers. “I can’t say with certainty, but we would still need around two months to start a mass vaccination campaign,” she added. The Sindh province health authority said around 100 health workers nationwide had died since the virus reached the world’s fifth most populous country last spring. Pulmonologist and Covid-19 expert Shazli Manzoor told AFP that the Chinese vaccine suited Pakistan because it could be stored at between two and eight degrees Celsius (36 and 46 Fahrenheit), compared to -70 degrees Celsius for other vaccines. He said the government would set up special clinics to monitor how the population was responding to the vaccinations. Some doctors have questioned how effective the vaccine will be. “It lacks transparency and data compared to other vaccines,” one Pakistani health expert told AFP. Up to 17 million doses of the British-Swedish produced AstraZeneca vaccine have been promised to Pakistan in the first half of 2021 under the Covax global pool, the government has said. Pakistan was not included on a list of countries in the region to receive vaccines from neighbouring India, which is home to the world’s largest vaccine manufacturer, the Serum Institute. A doctor in Islamabad was the first health worker to receive the jab in a symbolic ceremony in front of Prime Minister Imran Khan Tuesday night.

In the bustling northern Pakistani city of Peshawar a man in bowtie, bowler hat and carrying a cane flamboyantly weaves through busy traffic, narrowly avoiding rickshaws, motorcycles and buses in a scene reminiscent of a 1920s silent film. Usman Khan, 28, used to sell children’s toys from a roadside stand but during the coronavirus pandemic has transformed himself into Charlie Chaplin, a century after the silent comedian was propelled to global fame with his slapstick antics. “When the coronavirus was around, a lot of people were in real stress, some people gave up on life,” Khan told Reuters. “I was watching Charlie’s videos and thought, ‘Let me act like Charlie’.” Khan dons the familiar costume of Chaplin’s “The Tramp” character, with fake moustache and a little eyeliner. He takes to the streets, often accompanied by friends filming him, hoping to bring a bit of cheer in dreary times. His Chaplin visits a gym to interrupt a ping-pong match, attempting to hit the ball with his cane, and draws ire from shopkeepers as he upends their wares, coming close to landing himself in trouble, as his namesake often did in his films. But he also draws the laughter of children who gather round him after he poses on stairs in a local neighbourhood. “Making people smile with silent comedy, winning people’s hearts with silent comedy is a difficult task,” Khan said. In just two months, he has gained more than 800,000 followers on the social media platform TikTok – people, he says, from around the globe who find his comedy a welcome respite from the pandemic and its lockdowns and social-distancing. Khan hopes film and television producers will notice him as well – and says if he ever became wealthy he would share his earnings with the poor. The act is also a brief escape for Khan, who – like the real-life Chaplin before he shot to fame in Hollywood – comes from an impoverished family. Hawking toys does not bring in enough to cover daily expenses, he says. “When I leave my home, I shut the door on my own problems and look to bring happiness to others.”

A Pakistan military aircraft brought back the country’s first consignment of coronavirus (Covid-19) vaccines from China yesterday, the country’s health adviser, Faisal Sultan, said. China’s envoy in Islamabad would formally handover the 500,000 doses of vaccine produced by Sinopharm later, enabling Pakistan to begin its vaccination drive this week, officials said. “Thank God, the first batch of Sinopharm vaccine has arrived! Grateful to China and everyone who made this happen,” Sultan said in a statement released on Twitter. “I salute our frontline healthcare workers for their efforts and they’ll be first to get vaccinated.” Pakistan has asked China for another 1mn doses. It has also been pledged 17mn doses of AstraZeneca’s Covid-19 vaccine under a global scheme to deliver coronavirus treatments to developing nations. About 6mn doses will arrive by the end of March under the Covax scheme, with the remainder due by mid-year, Sultan announced last week. Pakistan, a country of 220m people, reported 1,615 new infections and 26 deaths in the latest 24-hours, taking the total number of cases to 546,428, with 11,683 deaths. “All eligible citizens as per phases will be informed to register once the vaccine process will start,” health ministry announced at its website. Pakistan signed up last year to the vaccine sharing scheme co-ordinated by the World Health Organisation (WHO) to support lower-income countries. Pakistan has approved both the vaccines for emergency use and will review their approval quarterly, officials said.

Pakistan has secured 17 million doses of AstraZeneca’s Covid-19 vaccine under a global scheme to deliver coronavirus treatments to developing nations, a government health official said on Saturday. About 6 million of the doses will arrive in the first quarter of 2021 under the Covax scheme, with the remainder due by mid-year, Faisal Sultan, special assistant to the Prime Minister on National Health Services, said in a statement. Pakistan signed up last year to the vaccine sharing scheme coordinated by the World Health Organization to support lower-income countries. "We remain confident that we will meet our plan of large-scale immunisation over the coming months this year," Sultan said. Pakistan expects to receive 500,000 doses of a vaccine made by China National Pharmaceutical Group (SinoPharm) in coming days. It will launch a vaccination drive, which will initially target healthworkers, next week. The South Asian nation of 220 million people also expects China to donate a further one million doses. Having already approved the AstraZeneca and SinoPharm vaccines, Pakistan is also likely to approve Russia's Sputnik V, officials say, adding that the authorisations will be reviewed quarterly. Pakistan reported 2,179 new infections and 65 deaths in the latest 24-hours, taking the total number of cases to 543,214, with 11,623 deaths.