Sudan has launched a coronavirus vaccination roll-out, giving priority to medical workers, state news agency SUNA said.

Health care workers at Jabra isolation hospital in the capital Khartoum started to get their first dose of the AstraZeneca vaccine on Tuesday, the agency said, adding that the first phase of the campaign will be expanded from March 15 to May 15 to include people aged 45 or older with chronic conditions.

The first phase will cover 3.5 percent of the country's population.

Sudan became the first country in the Middle East and North Africa to benefit from COVAX facility vaccines when it received 828,000 doses of the AstraZeneca shot on March 3. 

The African country says it expects to receive the remainder of a total 3.4 million doses through COVAX, a vaccine-sharing programme co-led by the World Health Organization, in the second quarter of this year.

It aims to cover 20 percent of its population of 44 million through COVAX by September, health ministry officials said.

As of March 7, Sudan had officially recorded 28,766 cases of the coronavirus, including 1,915 deaths.

(With input from agencies)