Brazil's Rio de Janeiro has resumed its COVID-19 vaccination rollout as a new batch of 444,000 doses of China's Sinovac COVID-19 vaccine landed in the city, mayor Eduardo Paes announced on Tuesday.

The second-biggest city was forced to suspend its COVID-19 immunization drive on March 12 due to vaccine shortage.

In addition, 500,000 doses of AstraZeneca vaccines formulated by the Oswaldo Cruz Foundation, using the active pharmaceutical ingredients from China, which arrived in February, will also be delivered to the Brazilian Ministry of Health on Wednesday.

As of Wednesday, 773,000 people in Rio had received the first dose of the COVID-19 vaccine, of which 254,000 had completed the second.