Algerian Minister of Pharmaceutical Industry, Lotfi Benahmed, on Tuesday, announced his country will start the local production of the COVID-19 vaccines from September.
Benahmed, who spoke on National Radio Algeria, added that producing the vaccines locally will save Algeria $5 per dose and $250m when the North African nation have to produce 50 million doses of the vaccines.
2.5 million doses of both the Russian vaccine Sputnik and Chinese Sinovac are expected to be produced at the laboratories of the state-owned pharmaceutical company, Saidal, per month.
According to him, while raw material for the Chinese vaccine will be obtained from Beijing that for the Russian vaccine Sputnik V will be produced locally.
Local production of the vaccines is expected to reduce the cost of importing the doses by 45% and 90% cheaper once the raw materials are produced in Algeria.
Sinovac has also agreed to supply Algeria with 15 million imported doses of its vaccines by the end of the year.
Figures released by Algerian authorities showed that only two million of the country’s 45 million population have been vaccinated to date.