Expatriates demand AstraZeneca vaccine doses

MANSEHRA: Overseas Pakistanis have demanded the government to vaccinate the expatriates aged 18 to 40 years with AstraZeneca as other vaccines being administered in the country are not accepted by the kingdom.

“We have been wandering at the specified health facilities in Mansehra, Abbottabad and elsewhere in Hazara division but none of them is willing to administer this aged group’s expatriates with AstraZeneca vaccines as other vaccines are not accepted by the Saudi government,” Noorul Hassan, an expatriate, told reporters here on Friday.

Led by Hassan, a group of expatriate Pakistanis mostly working in Saudi Arabia, said that they were being denied visas or tickets for family members and workers aged 18 to 40 years as they couldn’t present their vaccination certificates.

“It is unfortunate that the AstraZeneca vaccine, which is accepted by our host country, is not being administered to this age group anywhere and even at the health facilities running privately in the Hazara division and the rest of the country,” he said.

Raffaqat Khan, another expatriate, said that the federal government didn’t issue a license to AstraZeneca vaccine to be administered to people from 18 to 40 years of age apparently fearing its clotting/side effects in the body.

Shakeel Ahmad, another expatriate, said that people and overseas Pakistanis were overwhelmingly visiting specified health facilities for the vaccination but they didn’t offer AstraZeneca vaccine to 18 to 40 years old people.