Algeria Explores Making Russia’s Covid Vaccine

The office of the Algerian Prime Minister says it has begun discussions to have Russia’s Sputnik V Covid-19 vaccine made in the country.

“The two parties agreed to start contacts between the relevant bodies with a view to building cooperation in the field of making the Spoutnik V vaccine in Algeria,” said a statement from Prime Minister Abdelaziz Djerad after he met the Russian ambassador to Algiers Igor Baliaev.

The government did not give a manufacturing timeline, nor did it specify the quantities of doses to be produced.

Algeria received its first 500,000 doses of Sputnik V on Friday last week and started a vaccination campaign on Saturday in the province of Blida.

The authorities are expecting a second shipment of China’s Sinopharm vaccine “in the coming days”, according to the Communication Minister Ammar Belhimer.

An AstraZeneca-Oxford vaccine shipment that was ordered by the government would be delivered next month, according to the minister.

The Algerian government had announced a budget of €122m ($147m;£107m) to secure vaccines and to immunise the population of 40 million.

Meanwhile, President Abdelamdjid Tebboune is being treated in Germany for a Covid-19 complication.

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