Donations Seek to Save Tunisia from Covid Catastrophe

Donations Seek to Save Tunisia from Covid Catastrophe

Tunisians wait to receive a dose of the Sinopharm vaccine in the capital, Tunis. (AFP)

With Tunisia's health system close to collapse after being overwhelmed by a surge of Covid-19 cases, other countries and even individuals have stepped in to stem the crisis.

European and Gulf nations, Tunisians abroad and ordinary citizens have organized equipment and vaccine donations that are now helping to battle the pandemic.

The North African nation of 12 million people had been struggling to come up with the necessary vaccine doses even before Covid-19 really began to hit hard.

Now more than three million doses, most of them donated, have been sent, with the number set to reach five million by mid-August, the health ministry says.

China and the United Arab Emirates have each supplied 500,000 doses, while neighboring Algeria gave 250,000.

Jean-Baptiste Lemoyne at the French ministry for Europe and foreign affairs told AFP that France this week alone sent more than one million AstraZeneca and Janssen doses, enough to vaccinate "a tenth of the adult population".

But either because of sluggish diplomatic efforts by Tunisia or the global shortage of doses, vaccines have arrived late.

Tunisia has received just a sixth of the number of doses promised under the Covax program, set