The Ministry of Health announced yesterday that over one million people in Libya have now been vaccinated against the Coronavirus. The Health Ministry said this had been achieved using over 430 nationwide vaccination centres.
This achievement must, however, be kept in perspective as neighbouring Tunisia has vaccinated this number in days.
Indeed, yesterday’s figures from the country’s National Centre for Disease Control (NCDC) report the following:
- Total number of people vaccinated 1,014,310
- Total number of Coronavirus cases 298,773
- Total number of recovered cases 215,200
- Total number of active cases 79,474
- Total number of deaths 4,099
- Total number of tests conducted over last 24 hours 7,115
- Rate of infection 26.6 percent
The vaccination drive launched by the government has continued and so have announcements of the arrivals of oxygen supplies from Egypt as well as the reactivation of numerous local oxygen factories.
14 shipments of 3.6 million doses arrived
Moreover, last week, the fourteenth consignment of anti-Coronavirus vaccines arrived in Libya. It brings the total number of the four brands (Sputnik V, Astra Zeneca, Pfizer and Sinovac/pharm) received in Libya to 3,638,652 doses.
12 million ordered for 6.9 million population.
It will be recalled that the Libyan government had announced earlier that it had ordered a total of 12 million doses for its official population of 6.9 million people. The vaccine is available to non-national residents and illegal migrants too.
Tunisia keeps borders closed
However, there is some tension – on social media at least – between Libya and Tunisia as Tunisia has refused to reopen its borders and resume flights on 19 August after Libya had, apparently, closed and tried to reopen them unilaterally.
Libyans were irked when the Tunisian authorities refused to let ambulances queuing up it’s border crossing from entering.
Tunisia is saying its decision is based on medical grounds, Libyan social media have depicted it as a tit-for-tat reaction.
