‘8.6 million Afghans vaccinated against Covid-19 so far’

KABUL (Pajhwok): The Ministry of Public Health (MoPH) on Thursday said that 8.6 million people have been vaccinated against coronavirus across the country and another six million doses are still available.

The coronavirus, which first broke out in Wuhan, China two years ago, has spread almost worldwide. The virus infected hundreds of millions of people worldwide, killing four million in the world.

MoPH says a total of 179,279 positive cases have been registered in the country since the beginning of the outbreak of coronavirus, of which 16,2202 people recovered and 7,691 people died.

Following the spread of the virus, scientists researched on vaccines and some drugs to control the disease, as some countries succeeded in making vaccines.

So far, 14 million doses of vaccine have been donated to Afghanistan.

Dr. JavidHajir, spokesman for the Ministry of Public Health, told Pajhwok Afghan News that since the outbreak of the coronavirus, 14 million doses of the vaccine have been delivered to Afghanistan by India, Sweden, France, Austria, Italy and the Asian Development Bank (ADB) and by COVAX.

He said 8.6 million Afghans have so far been vaccinated against the virus and the process still continued.

The Ministry of Public Health currently has more than six million doses of vaccine in its storage, he said.

He said that four million doses of the vaccine are from Johnson and another 434,000 were Astrazeneca while over a million are Sinopharm vaccines.

He said that China has promised to provide more vaccines to Afghanistan in the future when needed.

COVAX has pledged to help Afghanistan with another 4.7 million doses of vaccine by the end of the second quarter of this year, he said.

Hajir said that Afghan government has not yet purchased the vaccine as the drug is so far provided in assistance to the Afghan people by various organizations.

What is a vaccine?

All WHO-approved vaccines have been shown to be very effective in protecting a person from severe coronavirus disease.

The best vaccine for people is the one which is easily accessible.

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