Sudan started inoculating frontline healthcare staff against coronavirus on Tuesday, according to a health official, after obtaining the first batch of vaccines last week.
According to Unicef, the country is the first in the Middle East and North Africa to receive vaccines through Covax, a UN-led project that offers vaccines to developing countries.
“We started Tuesday vaccinating health care workers and other staff in isolation hospitals,” revealed Al-Taher Abdelrahman of the isolation centres department at the health ministry.
“Those who received the first dose today will be receiving another dose after a month,” he announced when speaking from the Jabra hospital in the capital Khartoum.
According to health officials, the first batch to arrive in Sudan contained 828,000 doses of the AstraZeneca vaccine, which are expected to reach 414,000 frontline health care workers across the nation.
Sudan has received 3.4 million doses via Covax, which will be delivered in batches until the end of September.
Last week, Health Minister Omar al-Naguib said at a press conference that the vaccine “will be available for free,” with frontline doctors and the elderly being priority categories.
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