Pakistani President Tests Positive for COVID-19 After Injection With Chinese Vaccine

Pakistani President Arif Alvi speaks during the Pakistan Day military parade in Islamabad, Pakistan, on March 25, 2021. Salahuddin/Reuters

The Pakistani President tested positive for COVID-19 on March 29, 14 days after receiving his first injection with a Chinese vaccine; on March 20, the Pakistani Prime Minister tested positive for COVID-19, 2 days after he received his inoculation.

Pakistani President Arif Alvi announced on Twitter that he tested positive for COVID-19. Both he and his wife were inoculated with a COVID-19 vaccine made by Sinopharm on March 15.

On March 20, Pakistan’s Prime Minister Imran Khan tested positive for COVID-19 after receiving a vaccination on March 18. Khan’s wife also tested positive for the virus. According to Pakistani English language media, Khan announced that he fully recovered on March 30.

At the same time, Pakistan’s Defense Minister Pervez Khattak announced on Twitter on March 29 that he had tested positive for COVID-19.

Outgoing Finance Minister Abdul Hafeez Shaikh also tested positive for COVID-19, according to a March 30 Twitter post by Hammad Azhar, the minister for industries and production.

Pakistan approved emergency use of the Chinese vaccine Sinopharm on Feb. 5 and received 500,000 doses in mid-March, bringing its total stock to 1 million doses for the vaccine, which currently requires two doses.

The country has also approved for emergency use the AstraZeneca, the Sputnik V, and another Chinese vaccine the CanSinoBIO vaccine.

COVID-19 infection cases are increasing in Pakistan in recent weeks. As of March 30, there have been 663,200 infections and 14,356 coronavirus-related deaths reported since the outbreak began.

In an interview with China Central Television (CCTV) on March 20, Gao Fu, director of the Chinese Center for Disease Control and Prevention, explained why two doses of the COVID-19 vaccine may not be enough and a third dose could be required to prevent infections.

A Chinese doctor surnamed Liu from Xi’an city, the capital of Shaanxi Province, tested positive for the CCP virus despite being fully vaccinated with two doses, Chinese media reported on March 18. The reports didn’t say which Chinese-made vaccine the doctor received nor provide additional information about the case.

A virologist who spoke with The Epoch Times believes the poor quality of the Chinese-made vaccines and the increasing threat posed by CCP virus mutations are causing the infections. The CCP (Chinese Communist Party) virus causes the disease COVID-19.

China has reported a less than 4 percent vaccination rate. The Chinese regime is pushing for mandatory vaccination by incorporating citizens’ vaccination records into a digital health code on smartphones. The health code functions as a digital pass. Without it, people are denied access to public services, transportation, public places, business establishments, and residential neighborhoods.

The Chinese-language Epoch Times spoke with citizens in China who said they believed the regime would make vaccination compulsory. They were reluctant to get inoculated with Chinese-made vaccines due to quality concerns and a lack of transparency. They also believed that if vaccination information were included in their health codes, the data could be used to discriminate against them, and their movements would be more restricted.

A phase three clinical trial of the Sinovac vaccine conducted in Brazil in January reported that it was 50.4 percent effective, which is far below the initial claims of the Chinese company, which touted a 78 percent efficacy rate.

As of March 25, 10 people have died in Hong Kong after receiving Chinese-made vaccines in the three-week period after vaccinations began. It’s unclear whether the vaccines contributed to the deaths. Adverse events to the COVID-19 vaccine are not being reported in China.