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Herald Reporter

Government has already paid for 6,5 million more Covid-19 vaccines, Finance and Economic Development Minister Professor Mthuli Ncube revealed yesterday while receiving one million others purchased from China.

Another 1,5 million doses are expected this week.

At least 5,5 million vaccines have so far been received and the 6,5 million will take the figure to 12 million doses.

Speaking after receiving the one million Sinovac vaccines at the Robert Gabriel Mugabe International Airport, Prof Ncube revealed that Government had already made payments for more vaccines.

“I am happy to say our programme of buying vaccines is going very well,” he said. “We are also expecting another 1,5 million vaccines later this week.

“We have about 5,5 million vaccines that we have received so far. Going forward we have paid for another 6,5 million vaccines which would then take us to 12 million vaccines; they are all fully paid for.” Prof Ncube explained that US$100 million that has been used so far is money that was set aside from the 2020 budget surplus.

“So, for the 12 million vaccines including syringes, we have spent about US$93 million that we have already paid,” he said. “In addition to that, we paid another US$7,5 million for the acquisition of vaccines from the AU facility.

“We are still going to receive another 1,15 million vaccines from the Covax facility, the AU facility for which we had already paid for that is going to give us another five million.

“The resources we have used so far, the US$100 million we have set aside, is coming from the 2020 surplus. So, you can see that we are making use of the surplus to meet the requirements for vaccine acquisition,” he said.