[“In Pakistan, we already have skepticism, conspiracy theories and negative propaganda about vaccines,” said Javed Akram, one of the country’s top doctors and the vice chancellor of the University of Health Sciences, Lahore.]
By Shaiq
Hussain and Susannah George
Khan
was injected with China’s Sinopharm vaccine on Thursday and was probably
infected before then, according to Pakistan’s Health Ministry. The Sinopharm
vaccine requires two doses about a month apart and can take up to 21 days after
the second injection to become fully effective.
Minutes
after the news broke of Khan testing positive, debate about the vaccine’s
effectiveness heated up on social media in Pakistan and Sinopharm began
trending here on Twitter.
The
Health Ministry quickly responded that the prime minister was not fully
vaccinated when he contracted the virus.
“He
only got the first dose merely two days ago which is too soon for any vaccine
to become effective. Antibodies develop two to three weeks after the second
dose of two-dose covid vaccine,” it said in a tweet.
[Opinion:
Pakistan’s dangerous capitulation to the religious right on the coronavirus]
But
doctors and experts fear such statements will not be enough.
“In
Pakistan, we already have skepticism, conspiracy theories and negative
propaganda about vaccines,” said Javed Akram, one of the country’s top doctors
and the vice chancellor of the University of Health Sciences, Lahore.
“Look
at what people think of the vaccine for polio, a disease which has been
eliminated across the world, nearly,” he said. Many Pakistanis refuse to allow
their children to get a polio vaccination because of allegations spread by
hard-line religious leaders that it will render them infertile. Pakistan
remains one of just two countries in the world where polio is endemic.
“Imran
Khan tested positive even after receiving the vaccine, this shows that vaccines
imported into Pakistan are of no use,” read one tweet by a Pakistani user from
Peshawar who identified himself as Lawangeen Khan.
Another
user agreed that the prime minister’s infection proves the vaccine fails to
protect against the virus.
Khan
from Peshawar added, “May God recover him [from his illness] soon.”
Some
trials have shown China’s Sinopharm to be less effective than its Western
counterparts, but others have shown that its efficacy is on par with that of
vaccines manufactured by Pfizer-BioNTech and Moderna. However, little clinical
data on Sinopharm has been released publicly.
[Squeezed
out of the race for Western vaccines, developing countries turn to China]
China
was the first country to provide Pakistan with coronavirus vaccines, a sign of
growing ties between the two. The country also completed trials for the drug
that drew thousands of participants, despite fears
and skepticism.
Pakistan
is experiencing a third wave of coronavirus infections and imposed new lockdown
measures Saturday after recording nearly 4,000 cases, the highest in a single
day in eight months.
The
number of daily hospital admissions and people receiving critical care is
rising fast, Asad Umar, the minister leading the government’s response to the
coronavirus, warned in a tweet. He said if Pakistanis do not comply with the
current restrictions, a tighter lockdown will be imposed.
“Please
be very very careful. The new strain spreads faster and is more deadly,” he
said, referring to the variant of the coronavirus first detected in the United
Kingdom.
Khan’s
positive test was announced by Faisal Sultan, his aide, who said in a tweet
that the Pakistani leader is self-isolating at home but did not elaborate on
his condition.
