In Tunisia, a successful “marathon vaccination” day with joy and solidarity

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On August 8, Tunisia launched a “marathon vaccination” day to vaccinate people over 40 in more than 300 vaccination centers mobilized in all governorates of the country. Images of joy and celebration on social networks testify to the relief felt after long weeks of shortages of vaccines, oxygen and medical equipment in the midst of the fourth wave of Covid-19 spread by the Delta variant in July added to management catastrophic government.

From 7 am until 7 pm, several thousand Tunisians over 40 years of age flocked to the 335 vaccination centers mobilized for the “marathon vaccination” day, the first of the vaccination campaign launched by the ministry. health Sunday August 8. In 12 hours, 551,008 people were vaccinated, or 4.7% of the Tunisian population, according to the Ministry of Health.

This campaign, deemed successful, comes a month after the bitter failure of a day of vaccination without an appointment open to all Tunisian adults, organized on July 20, which had to be suspended due to lack of organization. the Minister of Health was sacked immediately after this incident.

The Tunisian government’s management of the health crisis due to the Covid-19 pandemic been severely criticized especially concerning the delay in the vaccination campaign launched in March 2021. The national toll reached an unprecedented peak in July: Tunisia recorded the highest death rate from Covid-19 in the world. In 18 months, five ministers of health have succeeded, the latest was appointed on August 6. The country is also going through a political crisis: faced with popular protest dissatisfied with this management, President Kaïs Saïd announced on July 25 to take the head of the executive power and freeze the activities of the National Assembly for a month.

Images of joy that Tunisians need

Amateur images filmed in different governorates of the country the same day testify to the relief felt by the population, after hard consecutive weeks without oxygen or doses of vaccines, reflecting a disastrous management of the acute health crisis affecting Tunisia.

In this video shot on August 8 in a center of the delegation ofEssouassi in Mehdia (east), an old man dances cheerfully to traditional music after receiving his dose of the Covid-19 vaccine.


As in Essouassi, musical troupes or artists performed voluntarily in various vaccination centers, most of them schools converted into field centers, in order to encourage residents to wait long enough to receive their dose of the vaccine and to keep the morale of the caregivers who work 12 hours in heat of over 40 ° C.


In this video taken in Monastir (east), a small concert was improvised in this center, during the vaccination operation. Caregivers and patients accompany the song, then stand up to sing the national anthem in chorus.

In this center of Mehdia (east), a music troupe, in folkloric attire, animates the vaccination day with traditional songs to make people who have come to receive their dose of the vaccine wait.


Later at 8 p.m., the nursing staff and volunteers from the Tunisian Scouts, who came to lend a hand, end the vaccination day on the island of Kerkennah (south-east) in a good mood, celebrating the day as a party.


A long-awaited resumption of vaccination

Images featuring gendarmes, Scouts or members of the Tunisian Red Crescent who came to help the smooth running of the vaccination day, have toured social networks and have moved the Tunisians. Like these images of gendarmes and volunteers from local associations carrying on their shoulders very old people or people with reduced mobility inside the building.


Two policemen carry a disabled person to a vaccination tent in Gabès (south-east).


A gendarme carries an old lady to the vaccination center in Cherarda in the governorate of Kairouan (center).

In addition to the human resources assistance during this first day of the vaccination campaign, associations provided water, a precious commodity due to the heat reaching 40 ° C and the presence of elderly people in the centers. An NGO brought bottles of cold water to patients, volunteers and nursing staff in a center in Ariana (Tunis).


In Gafsa (southwest), a resident distributes, from his tuk tuk serving as a mobile refrigerator, bottles of water and blocks of ice in local vaccination centers. A solidarity gesture much appreciated by the inhabitants in a region where it is 45 ° C in the middle of August.


The “marathon day” campaign was also open to foreign residents and undocumented migrants, as specified by the Ministry of Health. In these images, Mauritanian residents wait their turn in the courtyard of a college in Tunisia.


“They [Mauritaniens] take care of the fish, we [Tunisiens] let’s take care of the vaccination! “, comments this user in reference to the donation of 15,000 fish from Mauritania to help Tunisia.

August 8 marks the start of a new massive vaccination campaign, two weeks after Tunisia received 3.2 million doses of vaccine from different countries including Algeria, United Arab Emirates, China and France.

Vaccination in Tunisian pharmacies will start on August 16.

Since the end of June, Tunisia, which has officially recorded 20,931 deaths linked to Covid-19, has experienced the highest death rate since the start of the pandemic in the face of a delay in vaccination and poor government management. As of August 9, only 15 % of the adult population is vaccinated.

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