Jordan approves emergency use of China’s Sinopharm coronavirus vaccine
- The country hopes to start its vaccination campaign in the coming days, with around 200,000 people having registered for inoculation
- China’s Sinopharm says its vaccine is 79 per cent effective
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Jordan said on Saturday it has approved China’s Sinopharm coronavirus vaccine for emergency use, after giving the Pfizer-BioNTech jab the green light.
“Emergency use of the … Sinopharm vaccine against the novel coronavirus has been authorised,” the head of the Jordanian Food and Drug administration, Nizar Mheidat, told state television.
“It is the second vaccine available for use in Jordan, after the Pfizer/BioNTech vaccine,” which Jordan approved in December, he told Al-Mamlaka television.
Health ministry Secretary-General Wael Hayajneh said the first batch of Sinopharm would arrive at midnight Saturday, while an initial consignment of the Pfizer vaccine was due on Monday.
“The kingdom has requested several hundred doses of (Sinopharm) and they will arrive in weekly batches,” Hayajneh told Jordan state television Al-Mamlaka.
Jordan also expects to receive at least 200,000 doses of the Pfizer/BioNTech vaccine in the first quarter of this year, he added.
The country hopes to start its vaccination campaign in the coming days, Hayajneh said, adding that around 200,000 people have registered for inoculation.
The campaign is expected to initially target 20-25 per cent of Jordan’s population of 11 million, according to officials.
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Health Minister Nazir Obeidat said late last month that the kingdom had ordered a million doses of the Pfizer/BioNTech jab.
He also said that Jordan hoped to access 650,000 doses of the AstraZeneca/Oxford vaccine through the global Covax programme, and that the country had an agreement with US group Johnson & Johnson.
China’s Sinopharm says its vaccine is 79 per cent effective.
The health minister said in November that vaccines would be distributed free of charge to Jordanians and foreign residents.
The Hashemite kingdom has officially registered more than 305,000 novel coronavirus cases and nearly 4,000 deaths.
