AMMAN — Syria's government has received its first delivery
of COVID-19 vaccines through the global
COVAX initiative, with almost 200,000
doses of the AstraZeneca shot, UN officials said on Thursday.
اضافة اعلان
A joint statement by UNICEF, the World Health Organization
(
WHO) and the GAVI vaccine alliance said the delivery was "critical and
timely" and would help health workers "to continue delivering
life-saving services in an already exhausted health system as a result of the
decade-long war."
Another 53,800 vaccines were delivered to the
opposition-held north-west, which the statement said was an area that has seen
large-scale displacement after a major hostilities last year.
The statement said more deliveries were planned in coming
weeks and months.
Akjemal Magtymova, head of the WHO's Syria mission, told Syrian
health officials and UN partners at a ceremony on the arrival of the shipment
in Damascus there were challenges head but the country had a strong track
record in vaccination programs.
Magtymova said last month a phased rollout aimed to
inoculate nearly 20% of Syria’s population by the end of the year, or almost
five million people in both government-held areas and the northeast and
northwest.
The Damascus government’s national program across state-run
territory, where most of the country’s nearly 20 million inhabitants live, will
deploy dozens of teams across 76 hospitals with over 300 mobile units to access
hard to reach areas.
Western NGOs say that apart from the logistics challenges of
arranging vaccinations across combat frontlines, Syria faces the additional
hurdle of international financial sanctions.
Syria was hard hit by the pandemic last year during two
spikes in infections in August and December, and health workers cite a rise in
cases since February.
Syria has recorded 51,580 cases of COVID-19, but the actual
number is likely much higher due to limited testing supplies, UN officials
says.
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