On Tuesday, the Director of Libya’s National Center for Disease Control (NCDC), Dr. Badr Al-Din Al-Najjar revealed that all procedures have been completed to reserve 2.8 million doses of a COVID-19 vaccine, enough to vaccinate 1.4 million people in Libya.
Al-Najjar stated that the vaccines will be from the ‘Kovacs group’, and supervised by the World Health Organization (WHO). He added that there are no indications of the emergence of the mutated virus in Libya.
He explained that the epidemiological situation in Libya is relatively calm compared to European countries, who are facing a second wave of the virus. “However, in general, there has been a recent increase in the number of confirmed cases, overcrowding in isolation centers, and a slight increase in death rates,” he noted.
Al-Najjar added that the vaccines will arrive in Libya by May, pointing out that the Pfizer vaccine was excluded because it needed a temperature of 70 degrees below zero, which is unattainable in Libya.
Yesterday, the center recorded 487 positive cases, 992 recoveries, and 33 deaths. The number of active cases across the country exceeds 22,000.