The private sector is open to supporting the government in reaching the covid-19 vaccination target of 17 million people. This position comes at a time when doubts are growing about the effectiveness of the 200,000 doses of the Sinopharm vaccine recently donated by the People’s Republic of China to Mozambique.
It was in Parliament that the Minister of Health, Armindo Tiago, expressed his dissatisfaction with the criticism issued by members of parliament to the 200,000 doses of the vaccine that the country received from China. “This false information puts people in doubt whether or not to vaccinate. We need to set an example by saying that we have no doubts that the vaccine is a good thing,” declared the Health Minister.
However, far from the criticism, the private sector guarantees that it is open to help the government to acquire vaccines “in order to reach as soon as possible the target of 17 million people” established in the national vaccination plan, explains Evaristo Madimbe, president of the Mozambican Medicine Society.
In addition to the 200 thousand doses of vaccines from China, in the last few days Mozambique has also received 100 thousand doses from India and over 300 thousand doses, the first ones from the Covax international initiative. According to the minister Armindo Tiago, “it is expected that until the month of May, the country will receive 1.7 million doses of additional vaccines”.
The country is also carrying out the first phase of its vaccination campaign, with priority given to the immunization of about 60 thousand health technicians.
