Virus vaccines arrive in Senegal from China

Senegal received 200,000 doses of the Chinese COVID-19 vaccine Sinopharm on Wednesday.

President Macky Sall hosted a ceremony to mark the arrival of the vaccines, which the West African nation purchased for about 3.8 million (US) dollars according to its finance ministry.

In a speech broadcast on state television, Sall said the receipt of the vaccines meant the country was "entering a new stage" in the fight against COVID-19.

Health workers, people over 60 and those with co-morbidity, will be the first to receive the Sinopharm vaccine.

The Senegalese president announced that the country is in the process of buying 6,790,000 doses to aid the beginning of a mass vaccination campaign next month, but did not specify which company it would be buying from.

Senegal is also expecting nearly 1.3 million vaccine doses through the World Health Organization's COVAX initiative.

Sall asked the Minister of Health and Social Action to take all the health, logistical, financial and social mobilization arrangements necessary for launching vaccination campaigns throughout the country, and called the Institute Pasteur in Dakar - which produces the vaccine against the yellow fever - to examine the possibility of producing coronavirus vaccines.

The country has already received 1,117 freezers approved by the World Health Organization for the storage of vaccines, and cold rooms have been installed, according to the health ministry.

Since the start of the pandemic, Senegal has recorded almost 32,000 cases, including 760 deaths, and infections have increased in the past few months.

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