Angola: First 5 million doses of Covid-19 vaccine to arrive in February; 7 million by April

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Angola: First 5 million doses of Covid-19 vaccine to arrive in February; 7 million by April

12:36 CAT | 11 Dec 2020

Photo: Lusa

Angola is due to receive the first shipment of a vaccine against Covid-19, with five million doses, in February, and expects another seven million by April, the country’s health minister, Silvia Lutucuta, has announced.

“We believe that at least by February we have the opportunity to receive the first tranche of five million and what is planned is until April to receive the rest,” of a total of 12 million, the minister said after Thursday’s daily epidemiological briefing.

Lutucuta stressed that the vaccination programme is to have very specific rules: “Health professionals and people at risk, of advanced age or comorbidities will be vaccinated first, that is where we will start.”

More people will be inoculated “in due course”, she added.

The minister stressed that a vaccination campaign of this size “has a multisectoral scope”, so the government is working to define several aspects, including setting up the cold chain for vaccine conservation.

According to Lutucuta, Angola will initially have access to the vaccine manufactured by the US company Pfizer, but may receive others that are in the final phase of study and have requests for authorisation, such as the Russian and Chinese vaccines, “as long as there is certification from the WHO [World Health Organization] and similar entities, with a guarantee that they will be effective and will have fewer side effects.”

Angola has registered 15,925 cases of the novel coronavirus that causes Covid-19 since the first cases were detected in the country on 21 March. There have been 362 deaths associated with the disease and 8,679 people recorded as having recovered.

Currently there are 6,884 active cases, of which seven are in patients in a critical condition and seven in a serious condition.

The authorities on Thursday reported 121 new cases and four more deaths.

Source: Lusa