Opposition PPP chairperson Bilawal Bhutto-Zardari has targeted Prime Minister Imran Khan and said the country is not ready to combat the ongoing third wave of COVID-19 due to the government's "refusal" to purchase vaccines for every citizen.  Bilawal was quoted as saying by Dawn News Pakistan was trailing behind India, Bangladesh, Afghanistan and Sri Lanka in tackling the pandemic and the vaccination campaign, despite Afghanistan being a war-torn country.

Addressing a press conference in Jacobabad after meeting local PPP leaders and workers, he was quoted as saying by Dawn News that the "stubbornness" of the government in refusing to purchase vaccines had led to Pakistan lagging behind other regional countries in vaccine rollout.

"Pakistan is not at all ready to challenge the third [coronavirus] wave which is cropping up and coming in front of us," he said.

"If we are not ready then [it is] only because our federal government [is showing] stubbornness on this policy, that it is not ready to buy vaccines for every Pakistani which is the only solution to this problem," he said.

"I think this is a shameful reality and there is no need or reason why Pakistan's economic growth rate should be behind Bangladesh or Afghanistan.

"If there is a reason then it is only this puppet [government] which has been forced upon us which has no political or economic or historical knowhow and can't run the Pakistani state."

Pakistan has registered 14778 deaths due to COVID-19 so far, IBNS said.