A man receives the COVID-19 vaccine in Mogadishu, Somalia, on March 16, 2021. Somalia officially began the rollout of the COVID-19 vaccination exercise on Tuesday.(Photo: Xinhua)

 

A man receives the COVID-19 vaccine in Mogadishu, Somalia, on March 16, 2021. Somalia officially began the rollout of the COVID-19 vaccination exercise on Tuesday.(Photo: Xinhua)

 

Fawziya Abikar Nur, Somali Minister of Health and Human Service, receives the COVID-19 vaccine in Mogadishu, Somalia, on March 16, 2021. Somalia officially began the rollout of the COVID-19 vaccination exercise on Tuesday.(Photo: Xinhua)

 
As Fawziya Abikar Nur, Minister of Health and Human Service led health workers in receiving Oxford-AstraZeneca vaccine injection at De Martino Hospital in Mogadishu, Somalia officially began the rollout of the COVID-19 vaccination exercise on Tuesday.

The exercise, targeting some 20 percent of the population amid a new surge in infections, saw President Mohamed Abdullahi Farmajo receive his COVID-19 vaccine a day after the arrival of 300,000 first batch of doses from COVAX.

"I expressed faith in the vaccination efforts by endorsing it myself earlier today as we continue distributing it to ensure the protection of our citizens, especially frontline workers," Farmajo said in a statement issued after the exercise.

Nur said the vaccination program will also be conducted at several hospitals across the country with people from other federal states expected to receive vaccines in districts from the week of March 21 onwards.

The first batch of vaccines targets the country's frontline workers, the elderly and people with chronic health conditions, in an effort to reduce deaths and diseases caused by COVID-19.

Nur noted that vaccination is an effective intervention to halt the spread of COVID-19, and pledged that the doses would reach the intended beneficiaries.

She said the ministry will build on its extensive, long experience in conducting mass vaccination drives, educate the public in order to gain their support and raise awareness about the value and effectiveness of the vaccine, and utilize existing cold chain supply systems to distribute the vaccines.

The first vaccines arrived precisely a year after Somalia detected its first COVID-19 case, on March 16, 2020.

To date, the country has recorded 9,190 confirmed cases of COVID-19, with 367 deaths as of March 14.