Government officials, dignitaries and members of the media huddled around the freshly arrived boxes of AstraZeneca, as World Health Organization (WHO) employees slapped fresh Covax stickers on each of them.

During a press conference at the airport, WHO representative to Cambodia Dr Li Ailan urged Cambodians to get vaccinated as soon as possible.

Minister of Health Mam Bun Heng said he expected to receive enough vaccines to cover 20 percent of the population via the COVAX Facility. He said it was the government’s priority to protect lives, starting with frontline workers.

The batch of 324,000 doses was delivered courtesy of the COVAX Facility, the global vaccine alliance which was created to ensure equal access to COVID-19 vaccines across the globe. Combined with the 600,000 Sinopharm doses donated by China, Cambodia now has close to one million doses (924,000) of COVID-19 vaccines at its disposal.

According to the WHO, AstraZeneca vaccines have a 63.09 percent efficacy rate against symptomatic COVID-19 infections.

Like the Sinopharm vaccine, it can be stored at normal refrigerator temperatures, making it one of the most likely vaccines to be widely used across the world.

It’s also one of two vaccines listed by the WHO on their Emergency Use Listing (EUL).

Cambodia has now vaccinated 87,069 people; 25,244 civilians and 61,825 military personnel. The 87,069 vaccines administered represent about 10.6 percent of Cambodia’s total stockpile of vaccines.

According to khmertimeskh.com