Vaccines, Trials and Promising Results
Pakistan has had 535,914 reported cases of coronavirus to date of which 490,126 recovered. Even though the recovery rate of 98% is higher than global recovery rate of 97%, nonetheless Pakistan needs to take adequate measures for the availability and distribution of Covid’19 vaccines.
As per a statement issued by Dr Faisal, Special Assistant to Prime Minister, Pakistan plans to inoculate 70% of the population which means that roughly 150Mn doses or more are required, depending on the number of doses.
Several pharmaceuticals and research institutes worldwide are undergoing clinical trials to develop a vaccine for Covid‘19 of which few have cleared phase 3 trials including vaccines developed by Pfizer, Moderna, AstraZeneca and others.
Currently there are no vaccines available in Pakistan. However, DRAP has authorized three vaccines to be used; Sinopharm ,AstraZeneca and Sputnik V.
Sinopharm: China has agreed to donate Sinopharm to Pakistan, of which 0.5 Mn doses are expected to reach by the end of January while another 1Mn doses are expected to reach by February.
AstraZeneca: Sindh Medical Stores (SMS) has offered discounted rates of the vaccine if bought in bulk to the Government and institutes. However Astrazenaca is unlikely to be available in Pakistan anytime soon. The vaccine has already been pre booked and paid in advance by most countries.
According to news sources AstraZeneca is to be manufactured in the Serum Institue of India. The drug is to fulfill India’s demand foremost before reaching out to Pakistan.
Sputnik V: The vaccine has been developed with the backing of Russian Development Investment Fund (RDIF) and is currently being provided to Hungary and UAE. AGP Limited has been given approval to import the vaccine and distribute it. However, the price is to be fixed by DRAP which is expected to be less than USD 10 per dose. The first shipment is expected to arrive by the end of January, comprising of approximately 50,000 doses.
We expect AGP to have an impact of PKR 0.08/share on it’s EPS for every 100,000 doses of vaccine sold.
Full report here: