Tunisia Prepares to Begin First COVID-19 Vaccination Campaign

Tunisia will launch its vaccination campaign on Saturday after having received its first major delivery of coronavirus vaccine doses on Tuesday.

Health Minister Faouzi Mehdi was on hand for the delivery of Russia’s 30,000 Sputnik V doses in Tunis.

Vaccinations are scheduled to start with health care workers, soldiers, and security officers, people over 65, and people with chronic health problems.

The country seeks to vaccinate around three million people despite the low turnout, as the number of registered people slightly exceeds 500,000.

This has prompted Prime Minister Hichem El Mechichi to urge Tunisians to register to curb the spread of coronavirus, live normally, and practice their daily activities as soon as possible.

Mehdi said messages have been sent to people to inform them that the vaccination centers and medical staff are ready to begin the vaccination campaign without any delay.

The campaign is almost a month later than expected. The government had previously announced it was expecting an initial more than 93,000 doses of Pfizer/BioNTech and AstraZeneca/Oxford jabs from mid-February, but delivery under the UN-led COVAX scheme was delayed.

Tunis has purchased 500,000 Sputnik V doses, which will gradually arrive within the coming few weeks.

It will also receive 93,600 doses of Pfizer/BioNTech vaccines and nearly 137,000 doses of the European vaccine, in addition to a Chinese donation of at least 300,000 doses in two batches: the first will include 200,000 doses and the second will deliver 100,000 doses.

Meanwhile, the Health Ministry announced recording 43 new deaths, raising the death toll to 8,268 since the beginning of the pandemic.

On March 9, it recorded 614 new coronavirus cases, taking the infection tally to 238,613, including 205,176 recoveries.

It noted that 1,074 people are still in hospitals, including 273 in intensive care units and 91 on ventilators.