By Suleiman Sabdow
Mogadishu – Somalia government has on Sunday received an additional 336,500 doses of the Johnson & Johnson COVID-19 vaccine from the US government to bolster efforts to combatting with COVID-19 pandemic.
Officials from the Ministry of Health were on hand to receive the single- shot vaccine at the Aden Adde international Airport in Mogadishu through the COVAX facility which is a concerted effort between the WHO and several other countries to ensure the delivery of the if the COVID-19 vaccines to developing countries.
This consignment brings adds to the total National tally of doses of the Johnson & Johnson COVID-19 vaccine provided to Somalia by the United States to 638,900.
Up to date, the United States government has procured and delivered more than 220 million doses of vaccine to more than 100 countries.
The US embassy in Somalia in a statement said that they are sharing the vaccines with the aim to safeguarding the lives of people in developing countries which are at stake.
‘We are sharing these doses safely, equitably, and with no strings attached. We are doing this with the singular objective of saving lives,” the US embassy in Mogadishu said in a statement.
The shipment and donation of the COVID-19 vaccine is expected to embolden efforts to curbing the further spread of the global disease in Somalia which has so far claimed 1,234 lives sinces its onset in March 2020 in the Horn of Africa State as per official government figures.
Somalia’s Ministry of Health in Mogadishu reported 1,424 cases in October with the highest cases recorded in Somaliland at 960 followed by Puntland with 313 cases.