Special Assistant to the Prime Minister on Health, Dr Faisal Sultan has announced that around seven million doses of AstraZeneca would reach Pakistan in the first quarter of the current year. The doses of the vaccine will be given to the public free of cost. Pakistan’s vaccine drive starts next week, beginning with frontline healthcare workers.
The National Command and Control Centre (NCOC) has released an eight-step procedure to get the COVID-19 vaccine in Pakistan. The plan aims to vaccinate people under an integrated digital system following the best international practices, according to a statement by the NCOC. All details of immunisation will be handled through the National Immunisation Management System, which the federal government developed last year.
Pakistan will stop issuing manual visas from next month and has asked non-resident Pakistanis and others interested in travelling to the country to apply online for electronic or e-visas. This change applies to all Pakistani missions and embassies across the globe will stop issuing manual visas from Feb 1. Pakistan stopped issuing manual passports several years ago.
The Pakistan International Airlines has confirmed that the captain of a Lahore-bound commercial flight, PK-304, had spotted “an extraordinary object” hovering in the sky in the airspace between Multan and Sahiwal on January 23. A PIA spokesman said that the captain saw something over 1,000 feet above his aircraft, which was at an altitude of 35,000 feet.
Pakistan ranked 124 out of 180 countries — dropping four spots over last year — in the newly released Corruption Perceptions Index (CPI) by Transparency International. The 2020 edition of the CPI, an annual index that ranks countries based on perceptions of public sector corruption, ranked 180 countries and territories, drawing on 13 expert assessments and surveys of business executives.
Pakistani-American woman Saima Mohsin is all set to become the first immigrant Muslim Attorney in America, after the current Attorney for Michigan’s Eastern district resigned from his post. She will assume charge on February 1.Saima Mohsin was born in Pakistan and has been a federal prosecutor for decades, working since 2002 in the U.S. Attorney’s Office.
The government is likely to bear $6 to $7 per dose of millions of shots if it opts to pick the Oxford-AstraZeneca’s Covid-19 vaccine, which has been approved by the Drug Regulatory Authority of Pakistan (Drap). However, the vaccine’s sole authorised local distributor is at the moment unable to give a proper timeline for the supply.
Students with 16 years of education can now apply for admissions in a PhD degree, Higher Education Commission of Pakistan Chairperson Tariq Banuri said. This means students who have completed their Bachelor’s degrees can now opt for PhD directly, without acquiring a Master or MPhil degree.
Lt-Gen (retd) Bilal Akbar has been appointed as Pakistan’s Ambassador to Saudi Arabia. He has replaced a career diplomat, Raja Ali Ejaz. Since the Saudi ambassador to Pakistan Nawaf bin Saeed Al-Maliki was from the Royal Saudi Navy and retired as Rear Admiral, both Islamabad and Riyadh now have former military men as each other’s ambassadors in their respective capitals.
The Pakistani science ministry and a newly-appointed chairman of the Central Ruet-e-Hilal Committee, have agreed for the first time to work together and end the decades long ‘moon sighting’ controversy. Maulana Abdul Khabir Azad, the new chief of the moon sighting committee, said his committee would collaborate with the ministries of religion and science to gather scientific evidence to take a final decision.