On Saturday, the Libyan Prime Minister Abdelhamid Dbaiba was the first to get vaccinated in the country to demonstrate the safety of the vaccines.
Today, Libya launched a nationwide COVID-19 vaccination campaign, prioritizing frontline workers and vulnerable groups in the country.
Dbaiba, in a speech in front of the National Centre for Disease Control (NCDC) in Tripoli, announced that Libyans are seeking to move beyond the years of war and move towards peace.
“Through my recent visit to the Gulf countries, we announce our openness to the world. We want peace and put an end to conflicts in our homeland,” the Prime Minister noted.
Libya received more than 57,000 doses of a COVID-19 vaccine from the COVAX initiative.
The United Nations International Children’s Emergency Fund (UNICEF) said the doses that arrived late Thursday have been earmarked to health workers, people older than 75, and people with chronic diseases.
Libya’s NCDC said 57,600 doses of the Oxford AstraZeneca vaccine were in the first COVAX shipment to Libya.
Last week, Libya also received 101,250 doses of the Russian-made Sputnik vaccine.
Libya has seen a rise in COVID-19 cases. The country of around 7 million people has reported more than 166,000 confirmed cases and 2,799 virus-related deaths since the start of the pandemic. However, the actual numbers, like other places in the world, are thought to be far higher.