Azerbaijan Reaches New Milestone in Covid-19 Vaccination Drive

More than 4.5 million people in Azerbaijan, which is slightly less than half of the country’s population of ten million, have now been vaccinated against Covid-19 by receiving both doses within vaccination program administered by the government.

According to the latest data compiled by the Operative Headquarters under the Cabinet of Ministers of Azerbaijan, more than 10.3 million doses of Covid-19 vaccines have been administered in the country since the start of the mass inoculation in January 2021. The number of receivers of the first dose is 5.05 million.

In the meantime, around 740,961 people have been given a Covid-19 vaccine booster shot, an extra dose that helps improve the protection created by the previous two doses.

The ongoing voluntary and state-sponsored vaccination in Azerbaijan is scheduled for 2021-2022. CoronaVac, Vaxzevria (formerly AstraZeneca), Sputnik V, and Pfizer BioNTech vaccines are used for inoculation in the country. Selection of a vaccine brand and the venue for inoculation is voluntary and registered on an online platform launched by the state-run Agency for Compulsory Health Insurance.

Those who received two shots of a vaccine are eligible to receive a “vaccination certificate”, while the people that have contracted the virus and fought it off can obtain an “immune certificate”.

The Chinese-made CoronaVAC vaccine accounts for the largest number of vaccines used against Covid-19 in the country. Deals for the purchase of a total of 9 million CoronaVAC jabs have been secured by the government.

The Azerbaijani government authorized the use of more Covid-19 vaccine options in addition to CoronaVAC. On April 4, 84,000 doses of British-Swedish Vaxzevria (formerly AstraZeneca) vaccines were supplied from South Korea to Azerbaijan within the COVAX initiative supported by the country.

Azerbaijan imported 80,000 jabs of Russia-made Sputnik V Covid-19 vaccine as part of the purchase agreement signed between the country’s government and the vaccine manufacturer in March. The overall number of Sputnik-V jabs to be delivered to the country is 300,000. Azerbaijan also purchased 218,000 shots of the German-American vaccine Pfizer-BioNTech.

Meanwhile, the healthcare authorities in Azerbaijan advised a certain group of the country’s population, including the medical workers, people aged above 60, and those having a weak immune system to receive the third dose or a vaccine booster. The third shot can be a different vaccine from previously received two doses and is subject to a citizen’s personal choice, the Healthcare Ministry of Azerbaijan explained, as reported by BBC.

Covid-19 has infected 576,703 people in Azerbaijan as of November 23. The virus claimed 7,686 lives. Currently, there are 27,690 active coronavirus patients in the country.