Zimbabwe received an additional one million Sinovac vaccines on Sunday to ensure the country keeps up with the goal of achieving a herd immunity by end of year.
Speaking after receiving the vaccines at the Robert Gabriel Mugabe International Airport at the weekend, Finance and Economic Development minister, Professor Mthuli Ncube expressed delight for the progress made in procuring the vaccines.
“We have received one million Sinovac vaccines. I am happy to say our programme of buying vaccines is going very well. 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.
“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 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.
Health and Child Care permanent secretary, Dr Mangwiro, encouraged people to be vaccinated for the country to reach a herd immunity of 60 percent. “If your community is not vaccinated it becomes dangerous for that community.”
