Radès (Tunisia) (AFP)
Tunisia received from France on Thursday more than half a million vaccines as well as oxygen, the latest donation to this small Maghreb country hit by the Covid pandemic.
"More than a million doses of vaccines" will have been delivered to Tunisia by Friday, said French Secretary of State Jean-Baptiste Lemoyne, present at the port of Radès, a southern suburb of Tunis, where a ship from the French Navy also delivered three tanks filled with liquefied oxygen.
This allows "to supply up to 3,000 patients over 24 hours", according to the Quai d'Orsay.
In total, Paris has provided 624,000 doses of AstraZeneca vaccines, including 324,000 through the Covax initiative, to which will soon be added 500,000 doses of Janssen single-dose vaccine.
Faced with the Covid, "the best recipe is to stick together", added Mr. Lemoyne, "it is not a single state that can get by".
France supplied three oxygen generators at the beginning of June for the hospitals of Tataouine (south), Sidi Bouzid (center) and Sfax (east) but they are only partially operational.
Tunisian hospitals are struggling to obtain oxygen, the consumption of which has increased tenfold.
Tunisia, a country of 12 million people, has now taken delivery of around 3.2 million doses of vaccine and is expected to have obtained more than 5 million by mid-August, AFP told AFP. Tunisian Ministry of Health.
Saudi Arabia, the United States and China have also supplied vaccines to Tunisia, where the vaccination campaign has long been sluggish, mainly due to lack of doses.
On Thursday, Belgium sent 150,000 doses of AstraZeneca vaccines, and Latvia has promised 50,000, whose expiration date is approaching.
© 2021 AFP