“I have been waiting for my turn since February, and I hope to be vaccinated today”: like thousands of young Tunisians, Karima Mahdouni has resolved to wait hours in the sun on Tuesday in the hope of obtaining a dose vaccine against COViD-19.
Crowds of people gathered in the morning in front of the 29 vaccination centers exceptionally open to all adults on Tuesday and Wednesday, without an appointment, causing crushing and jostling.
The initiative had been announced the day before by the government on the occasion of the Eid al-Adha holidays, the most important Muslim holiday.
Since March, Tunisia has summoned its inhabitants to be vaccinated by age group. Only those over 50 and certain priority professions are currently concerned while the country has been experiencing an unprecedented increase in cases for a few weeks.
“I am on dialysis. For me, getting vaccinated should be mandatory, ”says Ms. Mahdouni, 36 years old.
But, when she arrived at noon, an hour before the opening of the vaccination center of the Palais des Congrès in Tunis, all the tickets had already been distributed. So not sure she can get a dose.
Same thing in Radès, in the southern suburbs of the capital. “I was told that there were 1000 doses of vaccines, and when I arrived at 1:00 p.m., the 1000 tickets were already distributed”, regrets Rami Nebli, 28 years old.
” Too risky “
“I want to be vaccinated so that we can resume our life, but there were thousands of people waiting so I came back: it was too risky to catch COVID,” he said.
Anis arrived at 9:00 a.m. Volunteer in civil protection, he participates in the transport of coronavirus patients but has still not been vaccinated because he is only 21 years old and does not exercise a medical profession.
“I am getting vaccinated to cut this wave, and to protect myself,” said the young man who came with his family from Ouardia, a popular district of Tunis. Her 18-year-old sister Sarra decided to come too “to protect (her) parents”.
Tunisia has been going through a peak of contamination in recent weeks unprecedented since the start of the pandemic and its hospitals are overwhelmed.
The vaccination campaign has been sluggish for a long time, especially as vaccine stocks were very limited until recently. Some 937,000 people have been vaccinated, or about 8% of the population, a rate too low to curb contagion even though it is among the highest in Africa.
Faced with shortages of oxygen, medical personnel, and resuscitation beds, the health situation in Tunisia has become catastrophic, prompting many countries to send medical aid in recent days.
Tunisia, 12 million inhabitants, now have around 3.2 million doses and are expected to exceed the 5 million vaccines available by mid-August, the Ministry of Health told AFP.
” Race against time “
While waiting and despite an initial reluctance towards the Sinopharm and AstraZeneca vaccines – administered during this “open door” vaccination campaign – the organizers were overwhelmed by the Tunisians who had come en masse to be vaccinated.
In the coastal town of Mahdia, the governor had to interrupt operations because there were too many candidates compared to the number of doses, according to a local radio station.
Another sign of the enthusiasm of Tunisians: the number of registrants on the government platform “evax”, compulsory passage for vaccination, which recorded some 100,000 new registrations between Monday and Tuesday, exceeding 3.6 million people.
“It’s a race against time,” pediatrician Rafla Tej Dellagi, head of the Tunis center vaccination center, told AFP. According to her, 100,000 people should be vaccinated per day against 40,000 currently to cut the chain of transmission.
Faced with the success of the vaccination operation open to all, the Ministry of Health announced Tuesday that it would continue it “for the next few days according to a schedule to be announced later”.
The vaccines should also be available in pharmacies from next week for people over 40 years old.
