Cameroon to start fifth phase of COVID-19 vaccination

China's Sinopharm vaccines are seen at an airport in Yaounde, Cameroon, April 11, 2021. (PHOTO / XINHUA)

YAOUNDE / MOSCOW – Cameroon will start the fifth phase of nationwide COVID-19 vaccination next month, according to the country's Minister of Public Health Manaouda Malachie.

The campaign will run from Nov 18 to 27 and will target people aged 18 and above, vaccinated people eligible for the booster dose, and pregnant and breastfeeding women, Manaouda said in a statement Friday night.

As part of the vaccine response against COVID-19, Cameroon has already covered 12 percent of its population aged 18 and above with more than 1.8 million vaccinated to date, the minister said.

"These encouraging results are not enough to protect the country from a new resurgence. Despite the period of calm observed for a few months, there are still serious cases of COVID-19," Manaouda said and added that the goal of the national vaccination campaign is to "achieve collective immunity."

Cameroon has been fighting COVID-19 since March 2020. It has logged 123,785 confirmed COVID-19 cases and has lost over 1,900 people to the coronavirus, according to Africa CDC.

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Russia

Russia registered 9,348 new COVID-19 cases in the past 24 hours, taking the nationwide tally to 21,364,263, the official monitoring and response center said Saturday.

The center said the nationwide death toll increased by 90 to 389,449, while the number of recoveries grew by 15,035 to 20,708,528.

Meanwhile, Moscow reported 865 new cases, taking its total to 3,224,258.