The Afghan Ministry of Public Health (MoPH) on Wednesday announced that it has successfully wrapped up the first round of its COVID-19 vaccination campaign as the country prepares for the third peak of the virus.

The health ministry spokesman said that China will soon send more COVID-19 vaccine to Afghanistan.

“700,000 doses of vaccine will arrive from China to Afghanistan, with the arrival of those doses we will continue with our vaccination campaign,” said Dastagir Nazari, a spokesman for the Ministry of Public Health.

Meanwhile, doctors at the Afghan-Japan hospital have said that the number of COVID-19 patients is increasing, and urged the public to follow health guidelines.

“The statistics have doubled compared to the past two weeks across Afghanistan,” said Zalmay Rishtin, the head of the Afghan-Japan hospital in Kabul.

“I had gone for a picnic with friends, perhaps I was infected there,” said a COVID-19 patient Ilyas Mashal.

Latest COVID-19 figures in Afghanistan:

The Ministry of Public Health on Wednesday reported 623 new positive cases of COVID-19 out of 2,869 samples tested in the last 24 hours.   

The ministry also reported 14 deaths and 193 recoveries from COVID-19 in the same period.  

On Tuesday Afghan health officials said that a third wave of COVID-19 might peak in the country within 10 days, and urged citizens to follow preventative health procedures. A shortage of health workers was also reported.

The new cases were reported in Kabul (194), Kandahar (88), Takhar (17), Herat (17), Balkh (5), Nangarhar (21), Baghlan (4), Kunduz (66), Nimruz (16), Faryab (3), Helmand (20), Maidan Wardak (23), Badakhshan (10), Daikundi (4), Logar (37), Laghman (19), Zabul (9), Uruzgan (25), Ghor (3), Khost (3), Farah (7) and Samangan (2) provinces. 

Deaths were reported in Kabul (5), Kandahar (2), Balkh (3), Nangarhar (1), Kunduz (1), Nimruz (1) and Ghazni (1). 

The ministry reported that the cumulative total of known COVID-19 cases is 68,366, the total number of reported deaths is 2,869, and the total number of recoveries is 56,711.    

So far, 455,780 samples have been tested in government centers and there are 8,786 known active COVID-19 cases in the country, data by the ministry indicates.    

According to Johns Hopkins University, the number of deaths from COVID-19 globally is more than 3,487,037 and the number of known global coronavirus cases is 167,878,150.