The federal government has directed the Punjab government to return funds received from the World Bank as it has now been decided to procure coronavirus vaccine with these funds, reported 24NewsHD TV channel on Tuesday.

The Centre asked the Chief Minister Usman Buzdar-led Punjab government to return Rs850 million to purchase coronavirus vaccine jabs.

The race to get COVID-19 vaccine has already paced up around the world and the federal government took several steps to ensure the vaccine’s availability for the frontline healthcare workers.

China has delivered the first batch of COVID-19 vaccine to the federal government and as per National Command and Control Centre (NCOC) policy the vaccine shots have been delivered to the provinces.  

Earlier, an officer of the District Health Office in Karachi's East district was suspended for allegedly violating the SOPs by facilitating the vaccination for PML-N leader Mohammad Zubair's daughter and son-in-law.

Despite the protocols that the first phase of the drive was supposed to be strictly limited to frontline healthcare workers, followed by people aged 65 years and above, the irregularity was witnessed in Sindh that stormed the social media upheaval and led to the suspension of the health officer.  

Sindh had received 83,000 doses of the vaccine, all of which would be provided to frontline health workers.