A mass COVID-19 vaccination campaign was launched in The Tajik capital on June 24, according to the Ministry of Health and Social Protection of the Population (MoHSPP).
The campaign will cover residents of Dushanbe 18 years old and over. “They can get vaccinated at a polyclinic at the place of residence,” Emomali Mirzoyev, a spokesman for a MoHSPP, told Asia-Plus in an interview.
The campaign has been launched to prevent the spread of the infection in the city,” said Mirzoyev. “Chinese vaccine CoronaVac will be used for mass COVID-19 vaccination in Dushanbe. The vaccine is free to the public.”
According to the statistical data from the MoHSPP, 153,103 people, including elderly people, health workers, officials and some others, have been vaccinated against COVID-19 as of June 25. 143,960 of them have got AstraZeneca vaccine shots.
As it had been reported earlier, a COVID-19 vaccination camapaign was launche din Tajikistan on March 23 this year.
As far as the Chinese CoronaVac vaccine is concerned, 9,143 people have got CoronaVac vaccine shots so far, the MoHSPP spokesman told Asia-Plus Friday (June 25) afternoon.
Recall, China airlifted 300,000 doses of Coronavirus, also known as the Sinovac COVID-19 vaccine, to Dushanbe in the evening of June 20. It is a donation of the Government of the People’s Republic of China to the Government and the people of the Republic of Tajikistan.
The vaccine was delivered to Tajikistan by a special charter flight organized by the Tajikistan-China Mining Company.
The Beijing-based biopharmaceutical company Sinovac is behind the CoronaVac vaccine.
So far, Sinovac's CoronaVac jab has only been fully authorized for use by China. But Beijing is also offering its vaccines around the world and has already shipped millions of doses to a number of countries.
In Asia, the biggest takers are Indonesia, Malaysia, the Philippines, Thailand and Pakistan, while in the Americas, Brazil, Mexico, Chile, Colombia and Ecuador have also ordered millions of shot.
In Europe, Turkey and Ukraine have signed large contracts for CoronaVac.
Some media reports say the vaccine is thought to be particularly important for African countries where so far Zimbabwe, Somalia, Djibouti, Benin and Tunisia have received vaccines from China.
On June 1, 2021, the World Health Organization (WHO) validated the vaccine for emergency use by which time over 430 million doses of CoronaVac had already been administered globally.
According to the U.N. health agency, CoronaVac was found to be 51% effective at preventing COVID-19 in late-stage trials, and researchers say it will be key to curbing the pandemic. This overall protection is lower than that provided by the seven other vaccines already listed by the WHO. But, importantly, trials suggest that CoronaVac is 100% effective at preventing severe disease and death.
