Islamabad: The administration of Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman has given a major blow to the hopes of Pakistani nationals who are preparing to go to Saudi Arabia. The special thing is that the Prime Minister of Pakistan returned from a three-day official visit to Saudi Arabia on Sunday night. Immediately after this, Saudi Arabia issued a new decree adding to the troubles of the Imran government. Saudi Arabia has said that it will not issue any visa to those Pakistanis who have got the ‘Made in China’ vaccine. This is because the Saudi regulator has not approved China’s Sinovac and Sinopharm vaccine. However, China has delivered the vaccine to Saudi under vaccine diplomacy.
The Saudi Arabian government has approved only four vaccines so far. These are Pfizer, Astrazeneca, Moderna and Johnson & Johnson. Of these, Johnson & Johnson’s vaccine works with one dose instead of two. The remaining three have double doses. China have delivered the doses its vaccines to Saudi Arabia, but they have not been used. Not only Saudi Arabia, China had sent their vaccines to more Gulf countries, but so far the regulators of these countries have not approved them.
According to a report by Geo News, the approval to travel to Saudi Arabia will be given only to those who have been vaccinated. A condition has also been added to this that those who inoculated ‘Made in China’ vaccines will not get the approval of the trip. The problem for Pakistanis is that the vaccines received from China are only being used here. Sputnik vaccine was ordered from Russia, but not a single dose of this has reached Pakistan. Pakistan’s economic condition is not such that it can buy the vaccine from India or other countries.
According to the report, the Saudi administration has now granted some relief in the matter. Those who have not been vaccinated will have to show a negative RT-PCR report, as well as a 14-days quarantine period will be mandatory and that too at their own expense.