Zambia gets additional shipment of AstraZeneca vaccine

By James Kunda

LUSAKA, Zambia (AA) - Zambia on Monday received 228,000 additional doses of the AstraZeneca vaccine donated by the French government through the COVAX facility.

“This is expected to heighten access to the second dose by our population which took the first dose of this particular vaccine,” Ministry of Health Permanent Secretary Kennedy Malama said upon witnessing the touchdown of the Emirates plane carrying the vaccines at Kenneth Kaunda International Airport in the capital Lusaka.

Zambia’s cumulative vaccinations to date stand at 142,246, with first dose vaccinations of the Sinopharm vaccine at 6,947 and 135,299 in the same category for AstraZeneca.

“Of these, 23,299 have gone on to receive the second dose vaccinations, with 17,011 for AstraZeneca and 6,288 for Sinopharm,” Malama said.

Zambia has to date recorded 165,513 positive COVID-19 cases with 2,492 deaths and 145,908 recoveries.

There are 17,113 active cases.

Zambia is currently in the third wave of the pandemic which has seen an increase in the daily death rate from one or two weekly in the second wave before June/July to a daily average of 40 lately.

On the daily cases recorded, the numbers seem to be hovering around the same parameters of between 1,200 and 2,500 in both the second and third waves.