This month, Pakistan officially began the quest to vaccinate its 220 million people against COVID-19. To kick-start the country’s mass vaccination program, 500,000 doses of the Sinopharm vaccine arrived from China, Pakistan’s closest ally.
At a launch ceremony on Feb. 2, Prime Minister Imran Khan thanked China for its vaccine largesse and noted the deceptively simple-sounding, yet mammoth, task ahead. “The vaccine will be first administered to health workers treating coronavirus patients, followed by elderly persons in the high-risk age group,” he said.
