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Blessings Chidakwa
Herald Reporter
Zimbabwe yesterday took delivery of one million Covid-19 Sinovac doses after having received another 1,5 million Sinopharm doses a few days earlier with the country’s total deliveries now surpassing 11 million doses.

The one million doses were delivered by Ethiopian Airways that touched down at Robert Gabriel Mugabe International Airport yesterday afternoon.

As Zimbabwe moves with pace to attain herd immunity the vaccines will be enough to cater for half of the population needed to be vaccinated for the country to attain the initial target of 10 million people with both jabs, although that number may have to rise.

Chief Coordinator for the national response to Covid-19, Dr Agnes Mahomva said the Government would continue procuring more vaccines.

“We have no intention to go without vaccines. We are on course to achieve herd immunity. We have been strategic from day one. Treasury has continued mobilising resources. We are quite excited with what we have done and we will not look back,” she said.

With so many doses now in stock, the country now needs to accelerate the actual number of people coming forward to ensure that targets to reach 10 million people are achieved by year end.

The vaccine roll-out began in earnest on February 22 targeting health workers and other frontline staff. It has now been opened to all Zimbabweans and plans are underway to start vaccinating teenagers in the 14-17 age group. And the introduction of the 14-17-year-old age group in the programme is expected to help to push the numbers towards achieving targets.

Schools opened on August 30 for exam classes and September 6 for non-exam classes and learners, who had been at home for three months due to the level four lockdown, said they had lost a lot of learning time, despite some having access to online lessons.