Portugal delivers more vaccines to Mozambique and over half a million
In a statement, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs (MNE) said that, with the delivery of this fourth batch, Portugal will deliver a total of 547 thousand vaccines already made available to Mozambique.
According to the Portuguese government, the vaccines, which arrive in Maputo on Thursday, are accompanied by the material necessary for their administration, “contributing to the efforts that the Mozambican state has undertaken to strengthen the response to covid-19 through extended vaccination of the population “.
Last week, on October 30, a third batch of 200,000 doses of vaccine was delivered.
“This action stems from the political commitment to make available to African Countries of Portuguese Official Language [PALOP] and to Timor-Leste at least 5% of the vaccines against covid-19 acquired by Portugal, as part of the second phase of the Health Action Plan for the covid-19 pandemic between Portugal and Portuguese-speaking African countries and Timor-Leste”, says the ministry supervised by Augusto Santos Silva.
Collaborate in this action of the MNE, through Camões – Institute for Cooperation and Language and the Embassy of Portugal in Maputo, and the Ministry of Health, through the General Directorate of Health (DGS) and the National Authority for Medicines and Health Products (Infarmed).
The transport of vaccines is supported by TAP, within the scope of a partnership signed on September 30 between the national carrier and the Camões Institute, with the aim of promoting collaboration between the two institutions, with a special focus on the transport of vaccines against covid-19 and respective consumables for the PALOP and Brazil.
Covid-19 has caused at least 5,012,784 deaths worldwide, among more than 247.54 million infections by the new coronavirus registered since the beginning of the pandemic, according to the latest report by the Agence France-Presse.
In Portugal, since March 2020, 18,180 people have died and 1,092,666 cases of infection have been recorded, according to data from the General Directorate of Health.
Mozambique records a cumulative total of 1,932 deaths associated with covid-19, out of 151,325 cases.
The respiratory disease is caused by the SARS-CoV-2 coronavirus, detected in late 2019 in Wuhan, a city in central China, and currently with variants identified in several countries.