HARARE – Zimbabwe will soon receive 1,152 million doses of the AstraZeneca Covid-19 vaccine under the ambitious COVAX global scheme which seeks to deliver more than two billion doses to developing countries.
Ghana became the first African nation to receive 600,000 AstraZeneca doses under the initiative on Wednesday.
“Fabulous to see that the COVAX rollout has begun in Africa! Zimbabwe will also very soon get 1,152 million doses under the COVAX scheme, to which EU is the biggest contributor,” said the European Union (EU) embassy in Harare in a Twitter statement.
The EU has so far allocated at least 1 billion Euros towards the COVAX initiative, set up by the World Health Organization (WHO), the Gavi Vaccines Alliance, and the Coalition for Epidemic Preparedness Innovations (CEPI) to ensure poor countries have equal and fair access to the life-saving coronavirus vaccines.
Earlier this month neighboring South Africa stopped administering the AstraZeneca vaccine after a study showed it was less effective against the highly-contagious 501Y.V2 variant discovered in that country, which is now 61 percent dominant in Zimbabwe.
Given that circumstance, the vaccine’s use in Zimbabwe will likely raise similar questions that have dogged the Chinese Sinopharm vaccine whose uptake among frontline workers has remained subdued due to safety and efficacy concerns against the South African strain despite assurances by health minister Constantino Chiwenga.
Zimbabwe, which rolled out its inoculation campaign on Monday after a donation of 200,000 Sinopharm doses from China, will soon receive a similar amount in handouts from the Asian giant.
Government will also make a purchase of 1,2 million doses from Sinopharm while continuing negotiations for jabs from other manufacturers including the Russian Sputnik V, according to authorities.
