Saturday August 14, 2021
A health worker administers a Johnson & Johnson COVID-19 vaccine dose in Dakar's Medina neighbourhood, Senegal, July 28, 2021.
Mogadishu (HOL) - Somalia received 302,400 doses of the Johnson and Johnson (J&J) COVID-19 vaccine through the World Health Organization's COVAX global vaccine sharing program on Saturday.
Somalia's Minister of Health, Dr. Fawziya Abikar Nur, thanked the U.S government for donating the J&J vaccine, which is administered in a single dose.
"In this race against time to end this pandemic and vaccinate people, it is critical that as many safe and effective vaccines as possible are available to Somalia's general public."
The U.S government has donated over 110 million doses of the vaccine to 65 countries so far.
Last week, Somalia received over 100,000 doses of the Oxford/vaccine AstraZeneca from the French government.
Somalia received its first batch - 300,00 doses - of the COVID-19 vaccine in mid-March.
Somalia's Health Ministry estimates that 186,094 people in Somalia have to date received their first dose of the vaccine, and 92,792 have received their second jab.
Since the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic, Somalia has recorded 15,594 confirmed cases that resulted in 828 deaths.