Distribution of Sinopharm Jabs Underway in Zimbabwe Provinces

20 FEB, 2021 - 00:02  

Part of the 11 000 doses received for Mat South Province

Mukudzei Chingwere

Herald Reporter

All provinces are now ready for the Covid-19 vaccination programme which was launched in the capital on Thursday, with Government yesterday starting the distribution of doses to all corners of the country.

Mashonaland West province yesterday received 11 192 doses of the life saving vaccine which will be dispatched to all the seven districts.

The vaccines were stored at Chinhoyi Provincial Hospital cold-room which has a 30 000-litre capacity.

Chegutu, Makonde and Sanyati districts received the vaccines yesterday while dispatch for Zvimba and Mhondoro districts is on today with Hurungwe and Kariba scheduled for Sunday.

Vaccination of over 6 000 frontline workers, including members of the media, is to begin on Monday and expected to last for 10 days.

Minister of State for Provincial Affairs and Devolution for Mashonaland West, Mary Mliswa-Chikoka who also chairs the provincial Covid-19 task force team, received the jabs at Chinhoyi Provincial Hospital.

Minister Mliswa-Chikoka who was accompanied by the provincial development coordinator, Mr Josphat Jaji and other personnel from the Ministry of Health and Child Care, said vaccination was free and voluntary.

Acting provincial medical director, Dr Gift Masoja said the once the province resumed the vaccination programme, had a window of 10 days to finish the exercise.

He said at least 316 health personnel from the province who tested positive for the virus, including him, would receive the jab in the second phase.

“The vaccines will be adequate for jabbing the 6 058 frontline workers. We are supposed to roll out the vaccination programme starting Monday for 10 days.”

He said all the receiving district centres were equipped with storage facilities made to support the Sinoparm vaccine.

In Bulawayo, the Covid-19 vaccination programme will be rolled out on Monday.

Permanent Secretary in the Ministry of Information, Publicity and Broadcasting Services, Mr Nick Mangwana confirmed this saying there was need for massive information dissemination on the Sinopharm vaccine to debunk various myths that were being peddled on various social media platforms.

“There has been a lot of scaremongering in the last week, misinformation and disinformation. Our duty is to make sure that the right information gets there,” Mr Mangwana said.

In the Midlands Province, 13 800 doses of the Covid-19 vaccine were received yesterday from the Ministry of Health and Child Care.

The vaccines were dispatched to Chirumanzu District yesterday and will be taken to Zvishavane, Shurugwi and Mberengwa tomorrow.

Kwekwe, Gokwe South and North will get their share on Monday, February 22.

Manicaland received 20 000 vaccine doses with the vaccination programme expected to be rolled out on Monday in all the districts of the province.

Manicaland provincial medical director, Dr Simon Nyadundu said everything was in place for the roll-out of the lifesaving vaccine with frontline workers set to be inoculated first.

“As Manicaland Province, we have received 20 000 plus doses of Covid-19 vaccines. The frontline workers will be the first beneficiaries of the vaccination programme which will be rolled out on Monday. There are storage facilities at health centres to keep the vaccines.

“We do know that a lot of people are sceptical about the vaccines but the process is critical in increasing resistance against Covid-19,” he said.

Matabeleland South provincial medical director Dr Rudo Chikodzore said they received 11 000 of the Sinopharm Covid19 doses on Thursday night.

She said they were already working on distributing them to the seven administrative districts.

“By end of the day tomorrow, we will have reached out to all the districts,” said Dr Chikodzore.

She said contingency plans had been made to make sure the vaccines reached all the target areas on time.

There were  back-up power supplies already in place in case there were power cuts.

Matabeleland South has five border posts although only two, Beitbridge and Plumtree, are open to commercial and selected traffic under the current lockdown protocols.

The other ports of entry are Maitengwe, Mpoengs and Mlambaphele all bordering Botswana.

Masvingo yesterday received  22 000 jabs which were delivered to the provincial medical director’s office.

The vaccines will be taken to all the seven districts in Masvingo with frontline health workers being the first to be inoculated.

Two teams per district have been created to move around health institutions to start the inoculation of frontline health workers beginning Monday.

The vaccines will be stored at the Ministry of Health and Child Care’s provincial medical stores before distribution to districts.

Provincial medical director Dr Amadeos Shamu, who received the consignment of the vaccines, said everything was in place to start vaccination of frontline health workers.