Portugal sent 24,000 doses of vaccines against Covid-19 to Cape Verde on Thursday – Africa

On Friday, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs announced that Portugal will supply Cape Verde with 24,000 doses of vaccines against Covid-19, as well as all the materials needed to make its administration viable.

According to the Ministry of National Education, the vaccines and materials – syringes and needles, among others – “are arriving today in the city of Praia” and will be delivered to local health authorities.

The Ministry notes that this measure is part of the political commitment to make available at least 5% of vaccines against the emerging coronavirus from Portugal, to PALOP and Timor-Leste, which is part of the second phase of the action plan in the health response to the COVID-19 epidemic between Portugal, Portuguese-speaking African countries and East Timor.

In mid-May, Portugal made its first shipment to Cape Verde, and at that time also made available 24,000 doses, which corresponds to “the request for support from the Government of Cape Verde, given the worsening epidemic situation in the country”, explained the Executive.

The Cape Verdean government this week extended the state of disaster on all islands for another 15 days, but acknowledged the existence of a “positive trend” in the development of the epidemiological situation on the archipelago.

The COVID-19 pandemic has killed more than four million people worldwide, according to the latest report by AFP.

In Portugal, since the beginning of the epidemic, in March 2020, 17,194 people died and 922,747 cases of infection were recorded, according to the Directorate General of Health.

However, at the moment, more than 40% of the population of Portugal has already been fully vaccinated against the new coronavirus, and according to the Directorate General of Health, only 0.1% of people who have been fully vaccinated have contracted the virus.

The respiratory disease is caused by the SARS-CoV-2 coronavirus, which was discovered in late 2019 in Wuhan, a city in central China, and currently with variants identified in countries such as the United Kingdom, India, South Africa, Brazil and Peru.