Tunisia receives 100,000 doses of Chinese vaccine

Tunisia announced that it would receive 100,000 doses of a Coronavirus vaccine, a donation from China, while its agreed participation under the UN “Kovacs” initiative was delayed.

The type of vaccine that will be sent has not been determined, nor the date of its arrival, as reported today by the Presidency of the Republic, “the French Press Agency.”

Two Chinese companies developed the vaccines, Sinopharm and Sinovac (Koronavac).

In a statement from Thursday night to Friday, the Presidency of the Republic confirmed that it had informed, “on Thursday, the willingness of the People’s Republic of China to deliver part of these vaccines to Tunisia in the form of a donation, so the ambassador Chinese Mr. Zaheng Zhuango, today expressed his country’s willingness to provide 100,000 doses of vaccines against the Covid 19 virus, as soon as mechanisms are available to transport the vaccine in the coming days.

And the country’s health authorities confirmed that “a new local strain of the virus has been discovered, but it is not dangerous.”

An official of the Tunisian Ministry of Health announced last week, “the postponement of the vaccination campaign against the Corona virus for next month, after the arrival of the doses.”

The government had previously announced that it expected 94,000 doses of the “Pfizer” and “AstraZeneca / Oxford” vaccines to arrive in mid-February.

Tunisia lags behind Morocco and Algeria, which started vaccination campaigns at the end of January with the “AstraZeneca / Oxford” and “Sputnik-V” vaccines.

On Wednesday, Algeria received a donation from China containing 200,000 doses of the “Sinopharm” vaccine, and Morocco is expected to reach 500,000 doses of this vaccine, according to local media.

Tunisia, which has a population of 11.7 million, has registered more than 231,000 coronavirus cases since the start of the epidemic, including some 8,000 deaths, according to figures from the Health Ministry.