In a news article appearing on VOA News on 18/02/2021 the Vice President Constantino Chiwenga stated that Zimbabwe had rolled out its COVID-19 vaccine program, with health workers getting the first of 200,000 Sinopharm vaccines donated by China. Although the Vice president claimed that the ministry of health had conducted scientific tests to ascertain the efficacy of Sinopharm vaccine, which was confirmed to be 79% effective, there is no scientific proof to confirm if this is true.
Mr Chiwenga advised that the government is planning to roll out the programme to the rest of the citizens, the true picture on the ground shows that front-line workers like doctors , nurses and other healthcare providers in hospitals and other health care facilities are not all receiving this vaccine as only a select number of frontline workers have been vaccinated thus leaving the other front line workers at risk of catching COVID-19 as they are providing services without any adequate PPE equipment.
Given the evidence on the
ground it appears as though Vice President Chiwenga’s speech was more of a
publicity stunt than reality. It appears that the current government does not
care about the safety and protection of the front-line workers in this Covid-19
Pandemic. We are on our own...
Author: Marian Mangani is a human rights activist. She is based in the United Kingdom and can be contacted by email on manganilisa@gmail.com
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