Buenos Aires (AFP)

Argentina received a delivery of 864,000 doses of the anti-Covid AstraZeneca vaccine from the Netherlands on Sunday as part of the Covax system and the agreement with the WHO, the Argentine government announced.

The South American country has acquired 9 million doses through Covax and had already received 218,000 doses in March under this system.

The AstraZeneca-Oxford vaccine accounts for almost all of the doses delivered by this system.

Argentina has received a total of 7.2 million doses from several laboratories, of which more than 6.2 million have been administered to date.

Almost 800,000 people received two doses.

Several demonstrations took place on Saturday in Buenos Aires to denounce the new health restrictions imposed in order to stem the resurgence of the Covid-19 epidemic.

Waving Argentinian flags and chanting slogans hostile to President Alberto Fernandez, the demonstrators in particular focused their protests against the suspension for 15 days of face-to-face classes in schools, which will come into force on Monday in the capital and its outskirts, epicenter of the contagion.

The new restrictions concern the capital and its periphery, or 15 million of the country's 45 million inhabitants.

In Buenos Aires, the occupancy of intensive care units reached 74.3% on Saturday, against 64.8% nationally.

Among the restrictions is a nighttime curfew from 8:00 p.m. to 6:00 a.m. local time, until April 30.

Argentina recorded 19,119 new cases and 80 deaths on Saturday, for a total toll of more than 2.6 million cases and 59,164 deaths.

One hundred countries and territories delivered with anti-Covid vaccines in 42 days: the Covax system celebrated on April 8 a symbolic milestone and renewed its confidence in AstraZeneca's serum, the backbone of a campaign for the time being handicapped by delays Delivery.

Covax was created by the Vaccine Alliance (Gavi), WHO, and the Coalition for Epidemic Preparedness Innovations (Cepi) to attempt to combat inequalities in access to anti-Covid immunization, including by providing 92 disadvantaged countries free of charge.

© 2021 AFP