Namibia received the first lot of 24,000 doses of COVID-19 vaccines at the Hosea Kutako International Airport on Friday morning, Minister of Health and Social Services Kalumbi Shangula said.
Shangula said that he was delighted to receive the vaccines acquired through the COVAX facility, a WHO-led initiative aimed at providing more equitable access to vaccines for low- and middle-income countries.
Amid the limitation of COVID vaccine exports by India, Namibia is one of the first countries in the African continent to pay for the delivery of the vaccines, though the batch was delayed twice. Among those countries, Zimbabwe has already received the second batch of vaccines (Sinopharm doses) from China.
The minister said the Astra Zeneca vaccines received would be administered countrywide and called on Namibians to embrace vaccination as one of the ways to deal with the pandemic.
As of this week, Namibia inoculated 3,587 people, with the aim of vaccinating at least 60 percent of its population.
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