Phnom Penh, (Samajweekly) Cambodia received new batches of Chinese Covid-19 vaccines, namely Sinovac and Sinopharm, on Saturday as the Covid-19 case total in the Southeast Asian nation neared the 60,000 mark.
Health ministry’s secretary of state Yok Sambath said that the new arrivals included Sinovac vaccines purchased from biopharmaceutical firm Sinovac Biotech and Sinopharm jabs ordered from pharmaceutical company Sinopharm, the Xinhua news agency reported.
“Today is a special day because we received a large number of Covid-19 vaccines,” she told reporters while receiving the jabs at the Phnom Penh International Airport.
She said that the kingdom has so far acquired more than 16 million doses of vaccines from China and the World Health Organization’s COVAX Facility.
Cambodia launched a Covid-19 inoculation drive on Feburary 10. To date 4.79 million people, or 47.9 per cent of the 10 million targeted adult population, have been vaccinated.
Covid-19 infection rates continued to rise in Cambodia. The kingdom logged 933 new cases on Saturday, pushing the national caseload to 59,978 with 881 deaths and 51,660 recoveries, the health ministry said.
World Health Organization (WHO) Representative to Cambodia Li Ailan expressed concerns over a spike in new cases and deaths, urging greater community participation to suppress transmission.
“The Covid-19 situation in Cambodia is not getting better. I am very worried about the increasing infections and deaths” she said on social media. “I know ‘worry’ itself is not a solution. Without more effective non-pharmaceutical interventions (NPIs), it is unlikely to get better.”
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