SHC allows the sale of Russia’s Sputnik V vaccine
The Sindh High Court allowed on Thursday the sale of Russia’s Sputnik V vaccine.
Doses of the vaccine were handed over to AGP Limited, which imported the vaccine, on March 31, DRAP’s lawyer told the court.
The single-member bench remarked that people should be given the vaccine at the earliest possible date. The vaccination process should not be delayed, it added.
The court was informed that the price of the vaccine has been fixed at Rs8,449 per two doses.
DRAP lawyer said that AGP Limited was given permission to import the vaccine before its prices were fixed. He requested the court to delay the sale permission by a week so the prices could be decided.
The bench remarked that it doesn’t want to delay the case. The hearing has adjourned till April 12.
It is not clear whether AGP Limited can sell the vaccine in the open market or to hospitals.
On March 31, the high court gave the federal government one week to fix the price of all the coronavirus vaccines being imported into the country.
People across the world are being administered vaccines and you don’t even have one million doses, said Justice Amjad Ali Sahito while speaking to the additional attorney general. “You are not doing anything. Please fix the price as people are waiting to be vaccinated.”
Russian vaccine’s 50,000 doses reached Karachi on March 18. It was imported by AGP Limited.
Sputnik V–named after the Soviet-era satellite–was approved in Russia months before results from its final-stage clinical trials were published, leading to scepticism from experts.
But the new analysis of data from 20,000 participants in Phase 3 trials suggests that the two-dose vaccination offers more than 90% efficacy against symptomatic Covid-19.
