The 50,000 doses of AstraZeneca vaccines made available by Portugal arrived on the same plane as the President of the Republic and the Minister of Foreign Affairs, Augusto Santos Silva, who are in Luanda to participate in the summit of CPLP heads of state.
"This donation has a very great meaning for the Angolans," stressed Minister Silvia Lutucuta.
"We are in a relentless fight against an invisible enemy, which is covid-19, which does not choose continents, does not have social class, and does not have race," the minister added.
Silvia Lutucuta said that the donation will "further strengthen" the Angolan vaccination plan.
"Believe that already tomorrow we will be using these vaccines in our high performance posts and our users are counting on these vaccines," she told Marcelo Rebelo de Sousa, highlighting the "very big expression of gratitude to the Portuguese people and the Portuguese government."
"I believe that we continue to strengthen our ties of friendship and cooperation and at this time of covid we really have to be for each other," he continued.
The 50,000 doses of vaccines were donated as part of a cooperation program with the PALOP countries in which Portugal plans to donate about one million vaccines, corresponding to 5 percent of those received through the European Union mechanism.
This was the second flight with vaccines that arrived this Thursday at the 4 de Fevereiro airport in Luanda, which received this morning 25,000 doses of component two of the Sputnik vaccine, coming from Russia and donated by the diamond company Alrosa.
Angola began its vaccination program on March 2 and 1,551,712 people have already been vaccinated.