BY RICHARD MUPONDE/HARRIET CHIKANDIWA
GOVERNMENT will use the existing immunisation policies as guidelines to roll out the COVID-19 vaccination programme when it starts.
This was revealed last week by the Health and Child Care ministry director of epidemiology and disease control, Portia Manangazira, when she appeared before the Parliamentary Portfolio Committee on Health and Child Care to update on the COVID-19 situation.
Manangazira told MPs at last week’s meeting that COVID-19 readiness assessments had already been done, and what was left was to deploy the vaccination strategy to be used once the programme kicked off.
Last month, the government indicated that it was crafting a COVID-19 vaccination roll-out plan, but it appears it has opted to use existing strategies. As of yesterday morning, the country had recorded 33 273 cumulative COVID-19 positive cases, and 1 193 deaths, including three ministers, Sibusiso Moyo (Foreign Affairs), Joel Biggie Matiza (Transport) and Ellen Gwaradzimba (Manicaland Provincial Affairs).
“I am happy to say as a country, we have a very robust immunisation programme for different diseases, and the ministry through the expanded programme on immunisation has conducted a national readiness assessment for the COVID-19 vaccine and we have also come up with a Zimbabwe COVID-19 national deployment and vaccination strategy,” Manangazira said.
She said government had also been studying the vaccines that were already on the market and was using World Health Organisation guidelines to help select suitable vaccines for the country.
Government is mobilising resources to buy vaccines and weekend reports suggested that it had raised US$100 million from the private sector, sufficient for doses to inoculate about 60% of the country’s population.
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Russia and China have reportedly approached the Zimbabwean government about supplying the vaccine, while the United Kingdom has offered to vaccinate 20% (about three million) of the country’s 15 million people when the Covax facility becomes ready.
