Zimpapers Logo

Rumbidzayi Zinyuke Senior Reporter

President Mnangagwa called on Zimbabweans to be relentless in pushing the national Covid-19 vaccination programme during his State of the Nation Address this week, commending frontline health workers, but noting that the success of the vaccination programme hinged on collective effort.

“I want to commend our frontline workers for their selfless sacrifice towards Covid-19 infection prevention, control and management,” he said. 

 “My Government will continue to avail more vaccines in order to save lives and livelihoods. I, however, call upon all of us to heighten our determination with regards to continued vaccinations in order to meet our desired national herd immunity target.” 

Zimbabwe began vaccine roll-out on February 22 and has made impressive headway since then.

Although the pace of inoculations has slowed, there are 3 152 916 people who have received their first dose, about 21 percent of the entire population, and 2 374 045 who have been fully vaccinated, about 15,8 percent of the entire population.

This gives Zimbabwe one of the best vaccination programmes on the continent and easily met the World Health Organisation target to vaccinate 10 percent of its population by the end of last month, one of just 15 African countries to do so.

An absolute minimum of 60 percent of the population needs to be vaccinated to move into herd immunity and Zimbabwe has in fact targeted 66 percent, setting 10 million as the minimum.

Harare, including Chitungwiza, has recorded the highest number of vaccinations with 549 633 first doses and 417 375 second doses being administered since the programme began. 

The province has a target of inoculating 1,7 million people to reach herd immunity.

But there is concern that the vaccination numbers in the second largest centre of the province, and Zimbabwe’s third largest urban council, Chitungwiza, remain very low with 69 257 people on the first dose and 45 502 who have been fully vaccinated. 

Experts have said the low numbers in Chitungwiza could be because many people who stay there work in Harare and have received their jabs in the capital. In Manicaland province, a total of 403 394 people have received their first dose and 301 083 people have received both doses while Bulawayo has recorded 251 737 people on the first jab and 213 109 on the second.

Mashonaland Central has recorded 229 298 first dosers and 177 200 second dosers while Mashonaland East and Mashonaland West have fully inoculated 248 715 and 251 451 people respectively.

Matabeleland North, Matabeleland South, Masvingo and Midlands have recorded 187 124, 121 395, 211 187 and 245 406 people who have received two doses of the vaccine.

Zimbabwe has purchased more than 12 million Covid-19 doses through the Treasury and early this week received a consignment of one million Sinopharm doses under the Covax facility to complement the available supplies.

The country needs over 20 million doses to be able to vaccinate 10 million people with a margin required to cope with inevitable wastage.