Mozambique has taken delivery of the largest single shipment of vaccine against COVID-19 it has yet received, accepting 1 million more doses of the vaccine devised by Sinopharm Group Co. Ltd of China, Xinhua reports.

The Chinese government-run news agency quotes Mozambican Deputy Minister of Health Lídia Cardoso as saying the doses are the first of 11 million Mozambique has ordered from Sinopharm for delivery by the end of this month.

Ms Cardoso said the vaccine would help her government speed up the inoculation of the 17 million Mozambicans it means to vaccinate.

She said Mozambique had received over 1.7 million doses so far.

In February the Chinese Embassy in Maputo announced that Mozambique had received its first 200,000 doses of the Sinopharm vaccine, and last month Xinhua reported that the country had received 500,000 more.