Pakistan's government announced that it has received its first consignment of the AstraZeneca coronavirus vaccine as the country of 220 million scrambles to secure more supplies amid a third wave of the pandemic.

Pakistan secured 17 million doses of the AstraZeneca vaccine through the World Health Organization's COVAX programme.  The first shipment of over 1.2 million doses of the Oxford/AstraZeneca vaccine has arrived in Islamabad, Rana Safdar, a senior Health Ministry official said.

The first delivery was expected in March but got delayed due to an Indian ban on the export of the vaccine. Meanwhile, Pakistan started processing China's single-dose CanSino vaccine.  The vaccine is expected to be available for use by the end of this month.

Pakistan is currently using China's Sinopharm and CanSino vaccines and has also allowed the commercial sale of Covid-19 vaccines. At least 3.3 million people have been vaccinated so far.

After some early reluctance, tens of thousands of people are getting themselves registered every day for vaccination following campaigns and warnings to encourage people to get vaccinated against Covid-19.

On Saturday, 4,109 new Covid-19 cases and 120 deaths were reported by the Health Ministry. Pakistan has so far recorded 854,240 cases and 18,797 deaths in total.

The country has been put under lockdown until May 16 during the Muslim holidays of Eid al-Fitr to contain the spread of the virus.

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