Tanzania has received its first batch of one million Johnson and Johnson Covid-19 vaccines donated by the US government, AP reports.

Tanzania had been among the few countries in Africa yet to receive vaccines or start inoculating its population against the Covid-19 pandemic, mainly because its former leader had claimed prayer had defeated Covid-19 in the country.

The vaccines were received by Foreign Affairs Minister Liberata Mulamula and the US ambassador to Tanzania, Donald Wright, at the Julius Nyerere International Airport in the country’s commercial capital, Dar es Salaam.