Seventy-two new cases of COVID-19 have been officially confirmed in Tajikistan as of the evening of August 4, bringing a total number of COVID-19 cases officially reported in the country since June 21 to 2,057.

Thus, the total number of the officially confirmed cases of COVID-19 infection in Tajikistan has reached 15,364 since April 30, 2020, when its index cases were confirmed in the country.  

According to the Ministry of Health and Social Protection of the Population (MoHSPP), no new coronavirus-linked deaths were reported in the country yesterday, and the number of officially confirmed cases of the coronavirus-linked deaths in Tajikistan remains the same – 121 since April 30, 2020, when the infection index cases were officially confirmed in Dushanbe and Khujand.

A MoHSPP says seventy-nine COVID-19 patients recovered in the country yesterday, bringing a total number of those who have been cured in Tajikistan since April 30, 2020 to 14,867.

Meanwhile, according to unofficial data, the number of affected persons and deaths is in the thousands, because there are more infections, and the disease has become more severe. 

The COVID-19 pandemic in Tajikistan is part of the worldwide pandemic of coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) caused by severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2).  The virus was confirmed to have spread to Tajikistan when its index cases, in Dushanbe and Khujand, were confirmed on 30 April 2020.  

By January 13, 2021, it was reported by the government that all cases had either recovered or died, leaving the country free of COVID-19 for the first time since April 2020.  However, after five months and twenty-one days, Tajikistan officially confirmed 63 new COVID-19 cases and one coronavirus-linked death on June 21.   

Meanwhile, the head of the UN health agency called on Wednesday for a moratorium on COVID-19 vaccine boosters until “at least the end of September” to enable the world’s most vulnerable people to be inoculated.

“I understand the concern of all Governments to protect their people from the Delta variant, but we cannot accept countries that have already used most of the global supply of vaccines using even more of it, while the world’s most vulnerable people remain unprotected”, said Tedros Adhanom Gebreyesus, head of the World Health Organization (WHO).

During his weekly press conference, Tedros recalled that in May he had requested international support to promote global vaccinations with the goal of enabling a minimum of 10 per cent of each country’s population to be vaccinated by the end of September. 

With more than half of the time already elapsed, he regretted that too little progress had been made towards that goal and even less towards the target of vaccinating 30 per cent by the end of this year.

The WHO chief indicated that so far, more than four billion COVID-19 vaccine doses had been administered around the globe, 80 per cent of them in high- and middle-income countries – even though less than half of the world’s population live there.

As of May, high-income countries had administered about 50 doses for every 100 people, a figure that has since almost doubled, while a lack of supply in low-income countries have left only 1.5 doses for every 100 people.