(Corrects spelling in first paragraph to AstraZeneca, not
AztraZeneca)
By Abdul Qadir Sediqi
KABUL, Feb 7 (Reuters) - Afghanistan received 500,000 doses
of AstraZeneca's COVID-19 vaccine from India on Sunday, the
first to arrive in the country, which is still waiting for
emergency approval from the World Health Organisation before it
can use them.
Ghulam Dastagir Nazari, head of the immunisation program at
the health ministry said the doses would be stored in Kabul
until the emergency authorisation was received, which it hoped
would happen in a week.
The vaccines were produced by the Serum Institute of India
(SII), which is producing the AstraZenecca/Oxford University
vaccine for mid- and low-income countries.
"The (WHO) certification process is underway and hopefully
it will be done in a week and we will start the vaccination
process in all 34 provinces," said Nazari.
Health workers, security force members, teachers and
government employees would receive the vaccine first, he said.
The Afghan government has already trained 1,000 people to
deliver the vaccine out of the 3,000 that will be needed to
carry out its vaccination drive, he said.
Nazari said China also planned to send 200,000 doses of the
vaccine.
Afghan health officials have also said that the
international COVAX programme aimed at improving access to the
COVID-19 vaccine for developing countries would provide vaccines
to cover 20% of the country's 38 million population.
Afghanistan has had 55,335 COVID-19 cases and 2,410 deaths
from the disease, according to the health ministry.
The WHO listed Pfizer and BioNTech's COVID-19 vaccine for
emergency use on Dec. 31 as it sought to accelerate vaccination
in the developing world, which is badly lagging western
countries.
A regional WHO official told Reuters this week that they
were looking at the production sites for the AstraZeneca vaccine
and hoped to make the decision on emergency use within weeks.
(Reporting by Abdul Qadir Sediqi; Writing by Charlotte
Greenfield; Editing by Christian Schmollinger)