Zambia receives additional 100,000 doses of Sinopharm vaccine

By James Kunda

LUSAKA, Zambia (AA) – Zambia received an additional 100,000 doses of the Chinese Sinopharm vaccine on Saturday as the southern African country continued to ramp up its response against the COVID-19 pandemic.

The Ethiopian Airlines plane carrying the consignment touched down at noon in the capital Lusaka.

Speaking at the handover ceremony, Kennedy Malama, a senior official from the Health Ministry thanked the Chinese government for donating vaccines that will help scale up the fight against the coronavirus.

“With our vaccination program expanding at an encouraging rate, it is important that we continue being innovative in demand creation and the consignment we are receiving today will go a long way in achieving the strides aimed at defeating COVID-19,” Malama said.

Chinese Ambassador to Zambia Li Jie said the consignment was earmarked to benefit at least 50,000 people eligible for vaccination.

In a latest update, Malama said Zambia has administered 302,222 first doses of vaccines, with 295,323 for AstraZeneca and 6,899 for Sinopharm.

He said 103,029 people had received a second dose of AstraZeneca, 78,854 others a shot of Johnson & Johnson, and another 6,336 a second dose of Sinopharm.

“Today, we report 527 new confirmed COVID-19 cases out of 6,996 tests. This brings the cumulative number of confirmed cases recorded to date to 199,662. We have also noted 15 new COVID-19 deaths, bringing the cumulative number to 3,474,” he added.