YAOUNDE, Nov. 10 (Xinhua) -- Cameroon is aiming to vaccinate 50 percent of all personnel on state payroll against COVID-19 in one month, health minister Manaouda Malachie said on Wednesday at the start of a campaign to inoculate state workers and pensioners.

The vaccination campaign started in the capital, Yaounde. Dozens of civil servants queued quietly at vaccination sites established in most government structures, telling Xinhua they were pleased to be vaccinated.

"I feel happy to be vaccinated finally. This is the only way to keep myself and my colleagues safe," Ernestine Nabu, a civil servant told Xinhua after taking the jab.

Over 250,000 of 528,000 state workers are targeted in the vaccination campaign that will end on December 10.

With four approved vaccines, the Central African nation has vaccinated over 600,000 people since the first batch of China's Sinopharm vaccines arrived in the country in April, Malachie told reporters in the capital, Yaounde during a press conference to launch the campaign.

"Cameroon has not recorded any death linked to side effects of vaccination. Only four people showed side effects but were treated immediately," Malachie said.

The vaccination campaign will keep civil servants healthy and confident and help to jump-start a post-pandemic recovery, minister of public service and administrative reform, Joseph Le said during the press conference.

"This campaign will help us to make sure that place of work should not be used to spread the virus. Vaccination is the best choice to fight this terrible pandemic," Le said and stressed that vaccination is not obligatory.

Cameroon wants to vaccinate 60 percent of the target population by January 2023, according to figures from the Expanded Program on Immunization. Enditem

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