Santiago, Feb 27 (IANS): Chile received another shipment of anti-Covid-19 CoronaVac vaccines from Chinese pharmaceutical firm Sinovac, following two earlier batches that arrived on January 28 and 31.

Chile's President Sebastian Pinera, accompanied by his health and science ministers, was on hand to receive the vaccines at the airport in the capital Santiago on Thursday, Xinhua news agency reported on Friday.

"From now on we can continue the vaccination process on a solid and safe ground, which will allow us to continue advancing in this mass vaccination," said Pinera.

Chile's Institute of Public Health approved the emergency use of the CoronaVac vaccine on January 20, based on the recommendations of a committee of experts who had convened to evaluate vaccines. The country's mass vaccination campaign was launched on February 3 and has to date inoculated 3,211,179 people.

This latest shipment will help bring the country closer to the objective of vaccinating the country's entire high-risk population of about five million people in the first three months of the year, and further vaccinating the entire target population of around 15 million people in the first half of the year, Pinera said.

According to the latest report from the Chilean Ministry of Health, 812,344 people have been diagnosed with Covid-19 since the start of the outbreak, and 20,310 people have died from the disease.