Federal government on Wednesday has announced plans to prepare a Chinese vaccine for COVID-19 in the upcoming month.

The vaccine prepared by CanSino Bio will be made locally in the beginning of May, the sources at the National Institute of Health (NIH) disclosed.

The CanSino Bio single dose corona vaccine will be prepared at the National Institute of Health, sources said.

“Locally prepared single-dose vaccines will be available for use in the end of May,” according to sources.

The raw material for the vaccine will be provided by the Chinese company.

Pakistan has procured special equipment and a team of CanSino Bio training Pakistani manpower at the NIH.

According to sources, the raw material of the corona vaccine is expected to reach Pakistan in the next few days.

The first batch of the coronavirus vaccine will be prepared in presence of the Chinese experts, sources further said.

Pakistan will prepare 20 million doses of the CanSino vaccine, for which raw material will be provided by the Chinese firm in bulk.

“In the initial stage limited doses of the vaccine will be prepared,” sources said.

Pakistan had earlier said that it will import China’s CanSino COVID-19 vaccine in bulk to package the doses locally.

Federal Minister for Planning Asad Umar, who leads the country’s anti-virus strategy, said in a tweet: “The bulk vaccine received will be formulated, sterilized and packed in Pakistan.”

For this purpose, he added, special equipment has been procured and manpower is being trained.

Moreover, four of the vaccines have been approved by the Drug Regulatory Authority of Pakistan (DRAP) for use in the country including China’s Sinopharm and CanSino, Russia’s Sputnik V and Oxford University’s AstraZeneca.