BEIJING, Jan. 17 (INP): Zahid Iqbal has become the first Pakistani citizen to receive Sinopharm COVID-19 vaccine in Shanghai, according to a report published by China Economic Net (CEN).

Zahid, about 44 years of age got second dose of vaccine this week and felt excited. Talking to CEN, he said that he is very satisfied that the Chinese company developed this vaccine and China is also working to provide this vaccine to Pakistan in a couple of weeks.

He has been working in an international school as head of Curriculum and Sciences in Shanghai for the last 18 years. Sharing his vaccination experience he said, “2020 was a very tough year for all of us, in one way or other all of us suffered, families of many of us got stuck back in Pakistan, and we stuck in China. And now we have entered 2021”.

“At the end of December, when we heard the news that we're going to have the vaccination, it was a little bit scary. We had to decide on one or two days. I did some research myself and talked to friends and finally, I made up my mind that I should go for it. It’s going to be good for us,” he mentioned.

He further said that after entering his information, he got his QR code. When he arrived at the vaccination center, he was very surprised to see a large number of people, and the way the administration organized all the people. The queue was pretty long, but it was very smooth going forward. He added that he was a little bit nervous in the beginning, but later on, he was okay.

“After going through different steps for vaccination, I got vaccinated but didn't feel any pain. It was normal. Everybody has gone through the vaccination at an early age, and it was the same as that. We were told to fill a consent form because there may be any reaction like muscular pain, fatigue, or fever in one or two days after vaccination. But I didn't have any adverse reaction. We were told after vaccination we had to take a few extra precautions like not to eat fish or spicy food,” he added.

Zahid said that he and his colleague had to stay in an observation area for 30 minutes just to see if there might be some side effects of vaccination. There were about 5,000 people there but he didn’t see any kind of adverse reaction.

“I was very happy at the smooth completion of this whole process, now we all are confident that we can defeat this virus. We need to be administered two doses of vaccine. After having the first one, the moral was pretty good, everybody felt confident,” he expressed.

He added that the second time, they had to go through the same procedure. The second time there were more people because Shanghai is a big city and the administration of the city was facilitating vaccines to more and more people like hospital staff, doctors, nurses, and school teachers.

“The way Chinese government prevent and control the pandemic has been outstanding. Everything has gone through very smoothly.  I am very happy that I have successfully completed this procedure, I also got a vaccination certificate which I can show to my friends,” Zahid added.

“If you have the opportunity to have a vaccination, please go ahead, this is very useful. It will be good for your immune system, you shouldn't bother about any conspiracies,” he said.

Zahid Iqbal is one among hundreds of thousands who have been vaccinated successfully. China is going to accelerate vaccination in the coming months. Chinese vaccine will be safeguarding millions in other parts of the world in the near future.

INP/JAVED