The finance minister Prof. Mthuli Ncube said that Zimbabwe has received 5 million vaccines so far and is set to receive 1,5 million vaccine doses this Thursday and another 2,5 million doses in August and 2,5 million in September. The government has used USD $93 million in the process.
The government started on a slow pace to procure these life saving vaccines wasting a lot of valuable time and now we are battling the third wave. But there are encouraging signs as the finance ministry has manage to secure millions of vaccines in the last few months.
Now the main challenge is scaling up the vaccination process as most hospitals and clinics still struggle to meet the demand. There are unconfirmed reports that some hospitals are vaccinating as little as 200 people per day. The numbers are dismally low and the government must pump all the necessary resources to make sure that everyone gets the vaccine.
To meet the demand, the government must come up with innovative ways including using the schools, halls, and any other public building as vaccination centers meeting people in their communities. The other challenge is massive misinformation from pastors and prophets as well as community leaders who are peddling lies and conspiracy discouraging members of the public from taking the vaccines.
So far we haven’t seen any aggressive public campaign to educate people especially those in rural areas about the safety of vaccines.
