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The Democratic Republic of Congo has received 250,000 doses of the Moderna vaccine donated through the global Covax programme.

It is the first time the country has received another vaccine other than AstraZeneca.

President Félix Tshisekedi himself was reluctant to take the AstraZeneca jab and promised to take a different one once they were available.

This first Moderna batch of 250.000 doses, which arrived on Monday, is part of the six million different vaccines that the central African country has been waiting for since last July.

Since the launch of the immunization campaign against Covid-19 on 19 April, less than 100,000 people have received a jab.

DR Congo is one of the countries where vaccine reluctance is high.

More than 300,000 doses of the AstraZeneca vaccines had to be disposed of when they expired last June and July.