MOGADISHU (SD) – China will provide COVID-19 vaccines to the horn of Africa nation to help the country fight the pandemic, the Somali health ministry confirmed this week.

After a meeting with China’s ambassador to Somalia Qin Jian, Somali health minister, Fowzia Abikar Nur told the media that the country will receive the second batch of COVID-19 vaccines.

The minister stated that Somalia will be among 53 countries that will receive the Chinese-made COVID-19 vaccine, Sinovac.

The Horn of Africa nation, which recently experienced a surge of cases, last month received its first shipment of 300,000 doses of the AstraZeneca vaccine through the international COVAX initiative to ensure that low- and middle-income countries receive vaccines.

The nation lost at least 520 people to Coronavirus since last year when the first case of the virus was recorded in the horn of Africa Nation.

The total number of confirmed cases in the country stands at 11,398 cases after 106 of 1,010 samples tested positive.

The announcement by the ministry comes days after the Al-Shabaab militant group warned people in their areas against COVID-19 inoculation.

Al-Shabaab’s Office of Politics and Wilaayaat in a statement said the vaccination’s harms far outweigh its benefits, but the Somali government has not commented on the claims by the group.