INDIA DONATES 75 000 Covid-19 vaccines to Zimbabwe

Posting on his microblogging Twitter page, the President said Government is working to ensure that the country secures enough vaccines that are key to a return to normalcy.
“We are grateful to our Indian friends for committing to donate 75 000 Covid vaccines and for the opportunity to buy more moving forward. We are working tirelessly to obtain sufficient vaccines so we can overcome this virus and revive our economy,” he said.
According to India’s Health Ministry, vaccination coverage in that country ranks third in the world, after the USA and the UK.

Zimbabwe kickstarted its vaccination programme on Thursday after receiving a donation of 200 000 doses of the vaccine from China with Bulawayo set to roll out the programme on Monday.
Under the first phase of the programme, Government is targeting frontline workers who are at high risk of Covid-19 and these include health workers, village health workers, ports of entry personnel, Zimbabwe Revenue Authority, Immigration and security health workers.
The country’s vaccination programme started in Harare on Thursday with Vice President Dr Constantino Chiwenga, who is also the Minister of Health and Child Care volunteering to take the first jab.
The Vice President turned up at Wilkins Infectious Diseases Hospital in Harare and took his first dose of the Sinopharm vaccine donated to Zimbabwe by China.

On Thursday, the Permanent Secretary in the Ministry of Information, Publicity and Broadcasting Services, Mr Nick Mangwana said there is need for massive information dissemination to debunk myths that are being peddled on various social media platforms over vaccines that the country has received.
He said there is a lot of scaremongering to frighten people from taking vaccines.
“There is a tendency sometimes that the message is framed and it ends up just in town, my visit is to ensure that our teams are working in the countryside and speak to the lady that is going to the well, speak to the people in the fields.
When we talk about people in outlying areas we are also talking about people in the rural areas, so there is a need for them to be informed,” he said.
“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.” chronicle