Tunisia and Lebanon announced the date of the arrival of anti-virus vaccines, and while vaccination campaigns continue in varying proportions in Europe and America, HIV infections around the world have exceeded 103 million cases.
Tunisian Health Minister Faouzi Mahdi announced on Saturday that Tunisia will receive in February about 100,000 doses of the vaccine, developed by the American companies Pfizer-BioNTech, and one million doses of the vaccine produced by the British-Swedish group AstraZeneca in cooperation with the University of Oxford. (AstraZeneca-Oxford).
Mahdi said that the World Health Organization has informed Tunisia of accepting its file, along with 18 other countries, to provide them with vaccines within the "COVAX" platform, which is an umbrella under which several organizations fall under, and aims to equitably distribute anti-virus vaccines.
This announcement comes at a time when the Tunisian Ministry of Health announced that, on an exceptional basis, it had issued a one-year license to promote the Russian vaccine in Tunisia.
In Moscow, the Russian Direct Investment Fund said that Tunisia has become the third country in Africa to register the Russian "Sputnik-V" vaccine against Covid-19 disease.
In Lebanon, Health Minister Hamad Hassan announced Saturday that the AstraZeneca vaccine will arrive in his country at the end of next February.
Hassan said - in a tweet on Twitter - that the "Kovacs" platform officially informed Lebanon that the first shipment of the AstraZeneca vaccine would arrive in the last week of February, recalling Pfizer’s pledge last December to start delivering its joint vaccine with Biontech as of mid-February. Same month.
Vaccination campaigns
These developments come while a campaign was launched Saturday in Algeria to vaccinate millions of people against the Corona virus using the Russian "Sputnik-V" vaccine, at a time when the authorities are still imposing restrictions to contain the epidemic.
The campaign was launched from Blida Province (center), which was the most affected at the beginning of the outbreak of the epidemic last March, and the Algerian Minister of Health said that the vaccination operations will be carried out gradually, and will include all states without exception, indicating that his country is seeking to obtain sufficient quantities. For its population of 44 million.
On Thursday, Morocco began a vaccination campaign against the Corona virus, using the vaccines AstraZeneca and the Chinese "Sinopharm", and Egypt is scheduled to start, on Sunday, vaccinating millions of its population using the Sinopharm vaccine, and weeks ago, vaccination campaigns were launched in Arab countries, including Qatar.
Outside the Arab region, Pakistani Planning Minister Asad Omar said Saturday that his country will receive 17 million doses of AstraZeneca vaccine within the framework of the "Kovacs" initiative, indicating that about 6 million doses will arrive by next March, and the rest by the end of the middle of the year.
A center for vaccination against Corona virus in the city of Petah Tikva, Israel (Reuters)
Despite the vaccination
and also regarding the vaccination campaigns, Israeli media reported that 10 members of a medical team at the "Ichliov" Hospital in Tel Aviv had contracted the Coronavirus, despite receiving two doses of the American-German Pfizer-Biontech vaccine.
The Israeli Channel 13 said that the symptoms appeared on the injured after the required period of time for the vaccination to take effect, which is 10 days.
She added that the Ministry of Health has opened an investigation regarding the date and manner of their infection, and if their infection was a result of mutated strains of the emerging corona virus.
Hebrew media outlets - including Haaretz newspaper - quoted the Israeli "Maccabi" health care organization as saying last Tuesday that 1% of Israelis who received the two doses of the vaccine against Corona were infected with the virus.
Infections globally
globally, and by dawn today, Sunday, the number of infections with the Coronavirus around the world had exceeded 103 million, while the total number of deaths resulting from the virus exceeded two million and 225 thousand, according to the latest figures published by the "World Meter" website.
The global toll jumped to these levels at a time when Europe and the United States are still recording large numbers of infections and deaths, despite the passage of a month since the launch of the vaccination campaigns against the virus in them.
The epidemic continues to accelerate globally, while mutated strains of the emerging corona virus have spread in dozens of countries, according to the World Health Organization.
These strains, some of which are described as more infectious, are the British, South African and Brazilian.
In terms of numbers, the death toll in the United States exceeded 447,000, after more than 3,600 deaths were recorded on Saturday.
In Europe, the increase in infections with the original virus and mutated strains is causing concern on the continent;
Which prompted a number of countries to impose strict measures.
In this context, France will, starting today, close its borders to travelers from outside the European Union, except for essential travel, in addition to closing its large commercial centers since Friday.
On Saturday, France recorded more than 27,000 new infections.
Also, starting from Saturday, Germany prevented entry to its lands by land, sea and air for arrivals from 5 countries experiencing a large outbreak of mutated strains of the virus.
As for Portugal - which announced on Saturday that it had only 7 vacant beds in the intensive care units prepared for Corona cases on its mainland - it was forced to send some of those in critical condition to a number of its islands, such as the island of Madeira.
In turn, Canada tightened restrictions on arrivals to its soil to contain the outbreak of the epidemic.