Mozambique Receives First Vaccines From China After Covax Delay

(Bloomberg) -- Mozambique will receive its first Covid-19 vaccines today, from China’s state-owned Sinopharm, that will be administered to health workers, the government said.

The southeast African nation of 31 million people will take delivery of the donation of 200,000 doses of the VeroCell vaccine at an airbase in Maputo, the capital, the office of Prime Minister Carlos Agostinho do Rosário said in an emailed statement on Wednesday. Earlier, President Filipe Nyusi said he’d been in contact with China’s President Xi Jinping for the past two months to secure the doses.

The inoculations arrive after the anticipated delivery of 2.4 million doses through the World Health Organization-backed Covax program was delayed until May, the state-owned Jornal Noticias newspaper reported, citing Benigna Matsinhe, deputy national director of public health. Covax is aimed at ensuring equitable access to the vaccines.

Neighboring Zimbabwe also received its first vaccines from China earlier this month.

Mozambique is preparing a national vaccination plan, and evaluating the approval and acquisition of inoculations from Sinovac, Johnson & Johnson, and Oxford-AstraZeneca, Noticias cited Matsinhe as saying.

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