Zimbabwe: Free vaccination to begin Thursday

By John Cassim

HARARE, Zimbabwe (AA) – A nationwide COVID-19 vaccination program will start in Zimbabwe on Thursday, targeting mainly health workers in the first phase, an official has announced.

“The vaccination program will commence on Feb. 18 on a voluntary basis and it will be free,” Information Minister Monica Mutsvangwa told a Tuesday news conference.

“A total of 22% of the population will be vaccinated during the first phase. In the second phase, 18.4% people will be targeted, while 18.4% will be vaccinated in the third phase, thus achieving the target of vaccinating nearly 60% of the entire population,” she added.

People over 60, frontline government workers, and vulnerable groups will be targeted in phase one, while phase two will target teachers.

The rest of the low-risk population will be catered for under phase three, Mutsvangwa added.

The inoculation program is starting amid concerns over the effectiveness of China’s Sinopharm vaccine against the South African variant.

Mutsvangwa said results of recent genomic sequencing found that the type of COVID-19 virus that the nation had in 2020 has receded and that there is now a new and more fatal variant.

“There is now a 61% dominance of the new South African COVID-19 virus, which spreads faster and has a higher fatality rate,” she warned.

The operational budget of all the three vaccination phases has been estimated at $7 million. India, China and Russia are also supporting the Southern African nation.

Zimbabwe has so far recorded 35,222 COVID-19 cases, with 30,759 recoveries and 1410 deaths.