YANGON (Reuters) – Myanmar launched the COVID-19 vaccination program on Wednesday, with healthcare workers and medical volunteers the first to receive glimpses of the AstraZeneca and Oxford University vaccine provided by the nearby India.
The Southeast Asian country received the number of COVID-19 cases early in the pandemic, but is now battling a second wave, recording more than 138,000 cases and 3,082 deaths.
Last week, Myanmar received 1.5 million doses of the vaccine made by the Serum Institute of India, amid a diplomatic campaign by New Dehli to deliver nearby countries just as China’s regional rival has promised loads vaccine.
“This should create a situation to reduce the level of infection, so it is a relief for health care workers,” Tun Myint, a health ministry official who monitors vaccines at Yangon General Hospital, told -report.
The number of daily new COVID-19 cases has fallen recently, although medical experts say they are unlikely to give a complete picture due to very low test rates.
“We are so tired of the long-running fight” against the pandemic, said medical volunteer Khant Ko Ko, who received a vaccine bullet at the Ayeyarwady Center, a facility in Yangon where treatment of coronavirus patients.
Myanmar’s fragile health care system has relied heavily on thousands of volunteers to help through the pandemic.
Phone Min Khant, another volunteer, said he felt happy to receive the vaccine and was pleased that Myanmar was among the first countries in Southeast Asia to launch a vaccination campaign.
The next group of people to be circulated will be MPs on Friday and Saturday, the health ministry has said.
Myanmar has an ambitious target of vaccinating the entire population, of about 54 million people, this year.
The health ministry has said that up to 30 million more doses of the AstraZeneca vaccine are prescribed by another two million to arrive before the first week of February.
Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi pledged when he visited this month 300,000 doses of Chinese COVID-19 vaccine.
(This story corrects a typo in “AstraZeneca” in the main paragraph)
Additional commentary by Zaw Naing Oo; Edited by Ed Davies & Simon Cameron-Moore