Algeria Minister of Health, Prof. Abderrahmane Benbouzid reassured, Monday in Algiers, citizens on the availability of doses of vaccine against Coronavirus “in significant quantities”, calling everyone to respect the health protocol to protect themselves from the outbreak.
Supervising the launch of the vaccination campaign at the National School of Tourism (ENST) at the Hotel El Aurassi, alongside with the Minister of Tourism and Handicrafts Yacine Hamadi, Health Minister said that “for August, we have more than 8 million doses of Chinese vaccine (SINOVAC) and one million doses of Anglo-Swedish vaccine AstraZeneca available for the vaccination of as many citizens as possible, especially in remote and isolated regions and villages”.
Recalling “the difficult and worrying situation” that Algeria is currently experiencing due to the spread of the pandemic of Coronavirus and the increase in cases of contamination and deaths, the Minister noted all the efforts and actions of solidarity that are still deployed by everyone for a proper care of affected patients.
In this context, he highlighted “the great work done by hospitals and civil society to ensure the availability of oxygen,” hailing “the solidarity of citizens who have assisted with their money and their arms to acquire or produce this material.
The Minister of Health had recently revealed that Algeria is about to receive at least 6,000 new oxygen concentrators, considering the situation as a “worrying” epidemiological situation and calling to work “hard and calmly” in order to overcome this crisis with “a minimum of human losses”.
He attributes the recent increase in deaths to the fact that infected individuals are presenting to the hospital at an advanced stage of the disease and not just because of the lack of oxygen.
“We follow up coordination work with the Algerian ambassadors in several European countries for the acquisition “as soon as possible” of concentrators and generators of oxygen from producers of this vital substance”, said Benbouzid.
For his part, Minister of Tourism and Handicrafts stressed the need to organize a vaccination campaign at the National School of Tourism (ENST) for largest possible number of employees and officials of the sector, operators and partners of tourism and travel agencies in addition to directors and employees of hotels.
Vaccination is “the best way” to avoid coronavirus infection, said Hamadi, who called on the respect of the barrier measures provided by the health protocol to fight against this pandemic.
The vaccination operation will be on August involving several tourism establishments and chambers of crafts within the sector across the country, he added, noting that a similar operation was launched today at the Chamber of Crafts in the province of Oran.
