Zimpapers Logo

Rumbidzayi Zinyuke-Senior Health Reporter

Zimbabwe has been making great strides to protect its citizens against the Covid-19 pandemic in one of the most successful inoculation programmes in Africa, with at least 12 million Covid-19 vaccine doses already paid for and more than 2,4 million doses injected.

The country currently ranks eighth in Africa in terms of administering vaccines and has a roll out plan that has so far proved to be the most successful in Southern Africa.

With a target to inoculate a minimum of 10 million people to attain herd immunity, the rate at which the Government has been procuring vaccines is encouraging.

President Mnangagwa’s administration set aside US$100 million for the purchase of vaccines and US$93 million has so far been utilised.

To date, the country has received 6,875 million doses of Sinopharm, Sinovac, Sputnik V and Covaxin vaccines.

By the end of July, a total of 2 413 509 doses had been administered, of which 1 645 599 were first doses and 767 910 were second jabs.

According to statistics from the Africa Centres for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), 4,66 percent of Zimbabweans have been fully vaccinated. 

For herd immunity to be achieved, 60 percent of the population needs to be fully vaccinated.

Although South Africa has administered more doses than Zimbabwe at 6,8 million, it has so far managed to fully vaccinate just 0,57 percent of its far larger population.

Angola has administered 1,6 million doses (1,9 percent of population fully vaccinated), Malawi 448 408 (0,3 percent), Zambia 381 015 (0,61 percent) and Mozambique 318 004 (0,25 percent).

Zimbabwe’s vaccine roll-out started on February 22 targeting health workers and other frontline staff.

The second stage brought in teachers, security services, judiciary, the clergy and people with chronic illnesses over and above the initial target group of frontline workers.

It took almost six weeks to reach 100 000 first jabs, but once that milestone was achieved, progress has not stopped.

The supply chain is now running well. 

Last week, Finance and Economic Development minister Mthuli Ncube said the procurement of vaccines and the vaccination rollout was part of the economic recovery strategy.

“To date, Zimbabwe has received over 5 million vaccine doses. Saving lives and livelihoods is part of Zimbabwe’s economic recovery strategy,” he said.

The vaccine procurement drive has been impressive.

The initial 200 000 Sinopharm vaccine doses, a gift from the Government of China was received on February 15, before the arrival of the first procurement of 144 000 Sinovac doses and another Chinese donation of 200 000. The country has also received donations from Indian Government of 35 000 Covaxin doses and 50 000 Sputnik V doses from Russian mining giant Alrosa.

But the procurement has far outstripped the gifts, with regular shipments of over one million doses arriving. On July 7, Zimbabwe received the single largest shipment of Covid-19 vaccines of two million Sinovac doses.

The most recent shipment of vaccines came last week, the 1,5 million dose order coming in two batches of 700 000 and 800 000 Sinopharm doses received 24 hours apart.

Minister Ncube recently said the vaccine procurement was going smoothly and guaranteed that herd immunity could be attained by year end.

“I am happy to say our programme of buying vaccines is going very well. 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. 

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

Vaccination has been increasing especially in border towns, hotspots and people’s markets where accelerated roll out is ongoing.

With demand for the vaccines still growing, Government will need to increase vaccination centres and staff to ensure all Zimbabweans in need of the jab can access it.

Zimbabwe needs a total of 20 million doses plus whatever is required to cope with wastage, which is probably very low, to guarantee that the targeted 10 million people are vaccinated.