Ethiopia on Saturday kicked off its vaccination campaign against COVID-19 with its health minister Dr. Lia Tadesse in Tigray region taking the first jab amid a surge in deaths from the virus.
Dr. Lia said the vaccine will be given first to healthcare workers, old people and others who are suffering from Non Communicable Diseases.
Ethiopia reported a record 27 new COVID-19 deaths on Friday, its highest daily figure, pushing the total number of confirmed fatalities to 2, 510, said the Ethiopian Public Health Institute.
The horn of Africa nation previously reported 22 fatalities in a day as its highest daily COVID-19 death count.
The institute in a statement said the highest new COVID-19 case was confirmed following laboratory tests on blood samples taken from dead bodies.
On Friday, 1,361 cases of coronavirus were confirmed out of 6,985 laboratory tests.
The country saw 805 recoveries from COVID-19 and 27 new COVID-19 deaths.
The nation has so far confirmed 172,571 with 28,864 active cases and 454 patients in intensive care units.
Regional presidents and ministers were also among those people who were vaccinated on Saturday.
The vaccine has been distributed across the nation.
Ethiopia took delivery of its first COVID-19 vaccines — 2.2 million doses of the AstraZeneca vaccine from COVAX Union last Sunday.
The vaccine reportedly takes a few weeks for the body to build immunity after vaccination.
That means it is possible a person could be infected with the virus that causes COVID-19 just before or just after vaccination.
MG/as/APA