Zimbabwe buys vaccines enough for a quarter of its population

by | Aug 25, 2021 | COVID 19 | 0 comments

 

Pretty Manyewe

The Government of Zimbabwe has procured a total of 8 285 000 doses of the Covid-19 vaccine to date.

On a continent where countries are struggling to vaccinate as little as 2 percent of their populations, Zimbabwe now has enough to cover 25 percent of Zimbabweans with two doses of any of the approved vaccines.

The last census reading showed that Zimbabwe has 16 million people, and 4 million of those are already covered by the available vaccine.

According to a Twitter post from the Ministry of Health and Child Care, it said, “The Deputy Minister Dr John Mangwiro toured the central stores to get an update of the COVID-19 vaccine stock status. As of today, the Government has received a total of 8285000 doses.”

The doses comprises of the Sinopharm and Sinovac from China, Covaxin from India and Sputnik-V from Russia.

The Government has a little over 4 million doses still in stock and has shut down all rumors that the country was now experiencing a shortage in vaccines.

Currently the country has seen 2345343 people receive their first dose and 1483048 people receive their second dose.

This leaves over 4 million doses in stock that can vaccinate at least 2million people with both doses without the country running out of stock.

The average number of people being vaccinated each day has risen to 35000 people receiving their first dose and 38000 people receiving their second dose since last week.

Another batch of vaccines are expected into the country by the end of August 2021 so as to ensure supply of vaccines meets the demand.

The Government is expecting to reach herd immunity by year end if the number of people getting vaccinated each day continues to rise at the current rate.

The Ministry of Health and Child Care has also assured people with underlying conditions like cancer, asthma, HIV, hypertension, diabetes, liver and kidney problems of the vaccines` safety.