China will soon ship to Guinea-Bissau a third batch of one of the Chinese vaccines against COVID-19, the Chinese Embassy in Bissau says.

Chinese Ambassador to Guinea-Bissau Guo Ce and Guinean Foreign Minister Suzi Carla Barbosa met on Monday, and Mr Guo told Ms Barbosa that China would keep helping Guinea-Bissau and work closely with all African countries to counter the COVID-19 pandemic, according to a written statement issued by Mr Guo’s embassy the next day.

Guinea-Bissau is willing to cooperate more closely with China in matters of public health in general, and in particular in preventing COVID-19 and controlling the spread of the disease, as part of common Sino-African efforts in the field of health, the embassy quotes Ms Barbosa as saying.

Last October the Portuguese news agency, Lusa, reported that the Chinese Embassy in Bissau had turned over to the authorities there 300,000 doses of the vaccine against COVID-19 devised by Sinopharm Group Co. Ltd of China, a gift from the Chinese government.