ISLAMABAD:Charge d’ affaires, Embassy of the United States of America, William A. Steuer has visited the federal warehouse complex of the Expanded Program on Immunization (EPI), which has been upgraded with the support of USA.
In a briefing on US health assistance to Pakistan after visit, William Steuer said “US stands with Pakistan in the fight against the COVID-19 virus. We will continue to work with Pakistan to fight the scourge of COVID-19 as the pandemic is not over.”
He said that to-date, the United States has donated over 23 million COVID-19 vaccine doses to Pakistan. “In fact, just over the past two weeks, we delivered an additional 7.4 million Pfizer doses just in time for Pakistan’s COVID-19 vaccination campaign efforts.”
He said the United States is leading the global fight against COVID-19 and has donated 200 million vaccine doses worldwide, terming it a major step toward the Biden Administration’s goal of delivering 1.1 billion vaccines doses worldwide to end the pandemic globally.
William Steuer said, “One of the reasons we have been able to donate so many vaccine doses to Pakistan is that the government of Pakistan has developed a tremendous capacity to store and distribute vaccines throughout the country.”
He congratulated Pakistan on reaching the milestone of administering 100 million doses of COVID-19 vaccines last week.
He said that the United States and Pakistan worked together to improve this warehouse in 2015 and turned it into a state-of-the-art storage and distribution facility.
He said that USAID has spent five million dollars to improve the storage conditions, renovate and rehabilitate the warehouse and dry stores, procure four cold rooms, develop a vaccine information system, and train warehouse staff.
As a result, this warehouse is now able to store COVID-19 vaccines in a safe and effective manner to ensure no vaccines are lost, he added.
“The only way for all of us to be safe and to return to our normal lives is for everyone to get vaccinated. We are working with a variety of partners here in Pakistan to urge everyone to get the jab.”
National Program Manager, Expanded Program on Immunization (EPI), Dr Akram Shah said that the governments of Pakistan and the United States of America have worked together for more than 70 years on issues that are important to both nations, including energy, economic growth, education, and most significantly health.
He said that immunization saves two to three million lives annually and is one of the most cost-effective public health interventions to stop the spread of preventable infectious diseases.
He said that USAID supports countries to develop sound immunization policies, strategies, and guidelines to ensure greater country ownership of routine immunization programs.
He said that USAID has always remained a very significant stakeholder of the Expanded Program on Immunization. “Our long-standing partnership shows the mutual commitment to reducing the spread of vaccine-preventable infectious diseases and protecting child lives.”
Dr Akram Shah said that the government of Pakistan highly appreciates the support and technical assistance provided by USAID in the domain of Information Management System, cold chain infrastructure, or lately the support provided in COVID-19 vaccine and testing kits.
He said that the vaccine Logistics Information System (vLMIS) was introduced in EPI with the technical and financial support of the United States Agency for International Development (USAID) in April 2013. Since then this system has been working to improve the performance of the EPI supply chain in Pakistan, he added.
The USAID project specializes in health commodities logistics and supply chain management, including forecasting, procurement, warehousing, distribution, and transportation to the last mile.
He said that the USAID and the government of Pakistan work together to address the wide range of challenges presented by the COVID-19 pandemic. In this regard, he added, Moderna (mRNA-1273) COVID-19 vaccines were supplied through the COVAX facility’s dose-sharing mechanism and donated by the United States was being distributed by the Government of Pakistan to vaccinate priority groups across the country, in line with the National Deployment and Vaccination Plan.
He said that USAID had donated COVID-19 rapid tests to the Ministry of National Health Services, Regulations, and Coordination on August 9, 2021. “We also value USAID assistance for strengthening health supply chain logistics systems and looking forward towards continued collaboration in future with USAID.”
The United States has upgraded Pakistan’s national warehouse with state-of-the-art equipment and a functional management system linked to the national vaccine Logistics Management Information System (LMIS).
As a result of this US support, the federal EPI warehouse has now been able to effectively store vaccines for routine immunizations over the last several years, as well as all incoming COVID-19 vaccines since the beginning of 2021. The US donated COVID-19 vaccines are stored in this warehouse.