Afghanistan received 500,000 doses of the Oxford-AstraZeneca’s COVID-19 vaccine from India on Sunday, the first to arrive in the country, which is still waiting for emergency approval from the World Health Organisation before it can use them.
Ghulam Dastagir Nazari, head of the immunisation program at the health ministry said the doses would be stored in Kabul until the emergency authorisation was received, which it hoped would happen in a week.
The vaccines were produced by the Serum Institute of India (SII), which is producing the AstraZenecca/Oxford University vaccine for mid- and low-income countries.
Afghanistan has had 55,335 COVID-19 cases and 2,410 deaths from the disease, according to the health ministry