A second plane carrying Sinopharm vaccines, this time 344 000 doses, is expected in Harare at around 8am this morning with health authorities working out how to accelerate the national vaccination programme as stocks build up.
The chartered Air Zimbabwe flight landed in Beijing
yesterday to collect the shipment of the second Chinese donation of 200 000
doses plus the first 144 000 doses of Zimbabwe’s initial commercial orders of
1,2 million doses with Sinopharm.
With cargo space still available on the same plane, Air
Zimbabwe agreed to ship another 100 000 doses most of the way to Namibia, where
they will be used to kickstart that country’s national vaccination programme.
The plane carries other medical supplies, in particular the
required quantity of single-use syringes for the orders, Deputy Chinese
Ambassador Mr Zhao Baogang said yesterday.
The first planeload, another Air Zimbabwe charter, landed
almost exactly four weeks ago on February 15, with the first gift of 200 000
doses allowing the national vaccination programme to be launched three days
later and getting into its stride across the districts on Monday February 22.
Next week those initial groups of vaccinated Zimbabweans
start getting their second dose, there being a four-week gap between the two
jabs.
According to medical information on the internet, Sinopharm
followed a very traditional route to create a vaccine, that is one built around
inactive virus particles. This is how polio, hepatitis A and rabies vaccines
that have saved so many lives were made. With these sorts of vaccines the body
uses two methods of creating an immune response to the disease.
The huge advantage the vaccines have is that the risk of an
adverse response is negligible, since there is nothing living as in the nRNA
live vaccines.
The effectiveness of the vaccine has been measured at
around 79 to just over 80 percent as statistics firm up with millions of people
now vaccinated with Sinopharm.
None of the vaccines so far developed are much closer to
100 percent, which is one reason why everybody requires two doses.
The dead Sinopharm vaccine can be stored in normal
refrigerators and cold-rooms at around 2 degrees to 8 degrees Celcius, roughly
the temperature of a good cold beer, rather than the -70 degrees some vaccines
need.
This means it is relatively easy to get the vaccines into
remote districts and store them there using normal cold chain facilities
already in place for other vaccines.
The live vaccine that is now causing concern in parts of
the European Union is a totally different type of product developed through a
completely different, and more complex process. Generally speaking, so long as
the dead vaccine can be produced and it works, and at 80 percent effectiveness
the Sinopharm one does, it has been favoured in past vaccine research, at least
as the starter vaccine for a new virus, because of its basic guaranteed safety.
The total shipment so far of 544 000 doses of Sinopharm
vaccine is enough for 272 000 Zimbabweans.
Vaccine supply chains around the world are tight, with
producer countries tending to give themselves higher priority. China has been
willing to share its daily production of vaccines, although with 1,4 billion
people it has the largest single national order on the planet.
The Chinese embassy in Zimbabwe has mentioned that both the
gifts, now totalling 400 000 doses, and the permission to start releasing
commercial orders had to come from the top, President Xi Jinping.
Besides the second donation of 200 000 doses of the
Sinopharm vaccine from China, Zimbabwe is also expecting to receive a donation
of 75 000 doses of the inactivated Covaxin from India, and another donation of
20 000 doses of Sputnik-V vaccine from Russia.
At the same time delivery timetables are now being hammered
out for how African countries will be accessing commercial supplies of other
vaccines under schemes being run by the African Union and the World Health
Organisation.
Treasury has set aside US$100 million for the procurement
of the vaccines that is expected to cater for 10 million people.
Yesterday President Mnangagwa made another appeal to
Zimbabweans to get vaccinated as their groups are called in under the phased
national programme, stressing again that the vaccinations in Zimbabwe will be
free and that all vaccines have to be approved in advance by the health
authorities to ensure safety.
Chinese Ambassador to Zimbabwe Mr Guo Shaochun confirmed
yesterday that the chartered flight was leaving China with the shipment and
added his voice to all the advice being given.
“Let’s keep the momentum in the vaccination programme and
keep more Zimbabweans safe. In the face of the pandemic, act with determination
and speed is the key,” he said.
Health and Child Care Deputy Minister Dr John Mangwiro last
week said the second stage would include people with serious medical conditions
and those over 60 after which the education sector workers and others with
medium risk would come in.
However, following the reopening of industry and the
schools, he said, the Government was deliberating how the phased vaccination
exercise could be tweaked.
“We are discussing if we can include teachers in the next
phase of vaccinations but as you know, the whole country has opened up and
everyone will need the vaccine. Our concern is to make sure that everyone is
safe,” he said. Herald
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