Guinea received 200,000 Sinopharm COVID-19 vaccine doses from China on Wednesday, as part of a multi-source effort to stop the spread of the coronavirus, according to foreign affairs minister Ibrahima Khalil Kaba.
The West African country of 12 million people is waiting for the first shipment of 864,000 vaccine doses from the global vaccine-sharing program COVAX, which began delivering to developing countries last week.
Guinea has confirmed 16,154 infections and 91 deaths from COVID-19. Following the discovery of an Ebola outbreak last month, it is also launching a simultaneous Ebola vaccination program.
Kaba said that “It is about giving the medical profession all the tools to overcome this double epidemic which is hitting us,”
A health ministry official said last month that Guinean authorities are in talks to get 400,000 doses of Russia’s Sputnik V COVID-19.
