The Ministry of National Health Services (NHS) on Thursday aired the high concerns of rejecting the deception of Sinopharm’s Covid-19 for not being safe for vulnerable populations, including people above 60 years of age.
“Some people have misinterpreted the guidelines of the vaccine. The fact is that it is a research-based recommendation that people over 60 years of age should not be vaccinated. The clinical trial of the vaccine was held on people from 18 to 60 years of age; so as per protocols, people of the same age group should be vaccinated. It does not mean that the vaccine is not safe for people of over 60 years of age. They can be vaccinated once the company releases data regarding clinical trial on them,” NHS ministry’s spokesperson Sajid Shah said.
“However, it needs to be understood that the vaccine is only being administered to frontline healthcare workers, who generally retire at the age of 60 from public sector hospitals and the same protocol is being used for private hospitals. People over 65 years of age will be vaccinated in the second phase for which even registration of such people has not yet started,” Mr Shah said.
As per the shared guidelines of Sinopharm, the people over 60 years of age, who take a high dose of steroid, or are on special medical aids like undergoing cancer treatment, received Corona plasma, fever, AIDS, lactating mothers and pregnant women can not use this vaccine.
Special Assistant to the Prime Minister on Health Dr Faisal Sultan, in a media briefing, highlighted the reservations over deceptive allegations of the Sinopharm vaccine for not being safe in use for people above 60.
“Since people over 60 years of age were hardly vaccinated during the clinical trial, it was decided not to vaccinate them. There is nothing unusual in it and such people will be allowed to get vaccines once the company issues data regarding people of higher age group. However, there is no age limit for AstraZeneca’s vaccine which will be administered to the people over 60 years of age,” he said.
Moreover, China has donated half a million doses of Sinopharm which are being provided to frontline healthcare workers. Furthermore Covax, an international alliance, has approved the supply of 17 million free doses of AstraZeneca till June which will be initiated in the third week of February this year.
According to the recent statistics of the National Command and Operation Centre (NCOC), 1,508 Covid-19 cases along with 31 deaths have been reported during the last 24 hours, whereas 277 ventilators were occupied across the country, while the number of active cases culminated to a figure of 32,889 on Thursday.
