US Donates 1.5Mln Doses Of Moderna COVID-19 Vaccine To Tajikistan - Embassy In Dushanbe

DUSHANBE (UrduPoint News / Sputnik - 26th July, 2021) Tajikistan has received 1.5 million doses of the coronavirus vaccine developed by Moderna from the United States as humanitarian assistance, the US Embassy in Dushanbe said on Monday.

"The U.S. government provided Tajikistan with 1.5 million doses of the Moderna COVID-19 vaccine. The vaccine doses represent humanitarian assistance from the United States for the people of Tajikistan and arrived on Monday, July 26," the embassy said in a press release.

Washington had already provided the Central Asian nation with $9 million of assistance to combat COVID-19 since March 2020, the embassy said, adding that the aid was delivered through the international COVAX shot-sharing mechanism.

The vaccine doses will be enough to fully vaccinated 750,000 people, or about 13% of the Tajik population, a senior Tajik Health Ministry official, Navruz Jafarov, told reporters on Monday.

To date, over 460,000 people out of the 9.3-million population of Tajikistan, roughly some 5%, have received both COVID-19 shots, according to the latest data provided by the Tajik Health Ministry.

The country also received 192,000 doses of the vaccine by AstraZeneca via COVAX in March and 300,000 doses of China's CoronaVac vaccine in humanitarian assistance from Beijing.