Senegal is due to receive 300,000 doses of the Chinese-made coronavirus vaccine Sinopharm this week, the governments of the West African country and China said.

In a tweet on Tuesday, Senegalese President Macky Sall said that China was going to deliver 300,000 vaccine doses, as well as 308,000 syringes.

-I appreciate this gesture of solitary from China- he said.

The vaccines are due to reach the capital Dakar by the end of the week, according to China's embassy in Senegal.

Beijing has donated its Sinopharm vaccine -- which its developers say is 79-percent effective -- to several poor countries as part of a global diplomatic push.

As with other African states, Senegal's infection rate is far below levels reached in the West, having recorded over 40,000 Covid-19 infections since March 2020 and 1,121 deaths.

Over 430,000 people in the nation of 16 million people have also received Covid-19 jabs, according to the latest government figures.

Senegal received some 300,000 AstraZeneca doses this year as part of the global Covax programme aimed at boosting immunisation in poorer nations.

But the government also bought 200,000 doses of Sinopharm for its vaccination campaign.

The announcement of China's donation of a new consignment of Sinopharm doses comes after the World Health Organisation approved the vaccine for emergency use last week.