Portugal to reschedule vaccine supply to Mozambique
The offer of 200,000 vaccines to Mozambique that Portugal announced for Friday will be rescheduled, depending on the doses already available in the country, a source at the Ministry of Foreign Affairs (MNE) told Lusa this Thursday.
“The next donation to Mozambique of vaccines against Covid-19 will be timely scheduled, in conjunction with the authorities of that country”, reads a note from the ministry, in response to a question from Lusa.
The Mozambican authorities “are currently having a privileged administration of the vaccines that is already in the country, before accepting new donations”, added the same source from the MNE, in an allusion to around two million doses of Janssen vaccine delivered on Monday – fair by the Covax initiative, with US support.
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Thus, “about 200 thousand doses that Portugal planned to send to Mozambique in December will be made available to the Covax mechanism, which will be allocated according to the needs of the associated beneficiary countries”.
Portugal has already delivered 547,000 doses of vaccines bilaterally to Mozambique, out of a total of more than two million doses delivered to African Portuguese Speaking Countries (PALOP) and East Timor.
According to the latest data from the Mozambican Health authorities, around 6.8 million people have already been inoculated in the country, of which 4.3 million are fully vaccinated, that is, a quarter of the 17 million intended to be vaccinated by the end of 2022.
Mozambique has a cumulative total of 1,941 deaths and 152,326 Covid-19 cases, of which 98% recovered and eight hospitalized.
The number of cases has been rising since the first week of December, but with no increase in admissions or death toll – the last death associated with Covid-19 was recorded on 28 November.
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