Tunisia will not receive the first shipment of vaccines on Feb. 15, postponing the expected start of its vaccination campaign until further notice.
The Health Ministry denied that Tunisia was responsible for the delay in delivery, confirming that it had abided by the legal deadlines and fully coordinated with the World Health Organization.
The vaccination campaign was scheduled to kick off mid-Feb.
According to the ministry, technical and administrative issues between COVAX and Pfizer-BioNTech US laboratory hindered the shipment of the vaccines on time.
Director of the Pasteur Institute Hashemi al-Wazir revealed that 475,838 Tunisians have registered to receive the vaccine.
Wazir explained that the health authorities seek to vaccinate 50 percent of the population.
The country expects to receive about 11 million doses of the vaccine in separate shipments.
The Health Ministry said on Wednesday that it will receive about one million doses from UK laboratories and one million doses from the US.
The vaccines will arrive in early March, in addition to two million doses of the Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine.
The Ministry reported 42 new COVID-19 deaths on Feb. 15, raising the death toll to 7,617 since March 2020.
While the infection tally reached 224,239, recoveries amounted to 184,499.
