Sinovac sends half a million Covid-19 vaccines to Algeria in its first Covax shipment
- The delivery of CoronaVac vaccines was made as part of global sharing scheme the Covax Facility
- They were bought by Unicef under a deal for Sinovac to supply it with up to 200 million doses this year
A shipment containing 567,600 doses of the CoronaVac vaccine was expected to arrive in Algiers, the Algerian capital, on Monday after being sent on Friday, Sinovac said.
The company said that the batch of vaccines was bought by Unicef. A partner of Covax, the United Nations agency in July signed a long-term supply agreement for CoronaVac under which Sinovac promised to provide up to 200 million doses this year.
Algeria had recorded 194,671 confirmed cases of Covid-19 as of Monday, with 5,179 deaths, and by August 22 had administered more than 4 million vaccine doses. It has a population of about 43 million.
01:30
WHO approves Sinovac Biotech’s coronavirus vaccine for emergency use
CoronaVac was approved for emergency use by the WHO in June, making Sinovac the second Chinese company to receive such approval, after state-owned Sinopharm in May.