Senegal receives 324,000 doses of AstraZeneca vaccine

By Aurore Bonny

LOME, Togo (AA) - Senegal on Wednesday received 324,000 doses of the AstraZeneca/Oxford vaccine under the World Health Organization’s COVAX initiative.

“About 1.3 million doses are expected to be delivered to vaccinate the priority targets as soon as possible,” the country’s Health Minister Abdoulaye Diouf Sarr said on Twitter.

The shipment was received at Blaise Diagne International Airport, a few kilometers from Dakar, the Senegalese capital.

Since the launch of a national vaccination campaign on Feb. 23 with the 200,000 doses of the Sinopharm vaccine from China, around 40,000 people, including President Macky Sall, have been vaccinated in the West African country, according to the Health Ministry.

The president invited the whole population to get vaccinated as well.

The country of more than 15 million inhabitants has so far recorded 35,037 COVID-19 cases, 29,620 recoveries and 896 deaths, according to the ministry.