Tunisia Prepares to Receive First Batch of COVID-19 Vaccine

Tunisia is preparing to receive the first batch of COVID-19 vaccine on Monday. The country expects to receive about 11 million doses of the vaccine in separate shipments.

The Health Ministry said on Wednesday that it will receive about one million doses from UK laboratories and one million doses from the US.

These vaccines will arrive in early March, in addition to two million doses of the Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine.

Notably, Medical staff workers will be the first to receive the jabs.

On Tuesday, the parliament adopted a bill authorizing Tunisia to join the global COVAX initiative for equitable global access to COVID-19 vaccines.

Meanwhile, Health Minister Faouzi Mehdi announced a decrease in the number of infections in the country but stressed the need to adhere to the health preventive measures.

He pointed out that more than 400,000 Tunisians have registered to receive the vaccine, “which is a limited number compared to what Tunisia aspires to in terms of the number of vaccinated citizens.”

This came as the Health Ministry reported 75 new Covid-19 deaths by Feb. 8, raising the death toll to 7,332 since March 2020.

It also recorded 811 new infections, raising the infection tally to 218,564.