Maputo — A further 500,000 doses of the VeroCell vaccine, produced by the Chinese company Sinopharm, for the fight against the Covid-19 pandemic, arrived in Maputo on Monday.
According to a Ministry of Health press release, Deputy Health Minister Lidia Cardoso verified the vaccines at the government’s Central Medical Stores in the outlying Maputo neighbourhood of Zimpeto. They will now be flown to the provinces, for use in the mass vaccination campaign currently underway.
“These vaccine doses will be added to those received earlier and will ensure the normal course of the mass vaccination campaign that began on 4 August”, said Cardoso.
This is the third consignment of vaccines acquired by the government. To date the government has acquired two million doses out of the 11 million it hopes to receive by the end of the year.
In addition, according to the Ministry release, 1,904,400 doses have arrived, donated under bilateral agreements under Mozambique and other countries, as well as through the COVAX mechanism, overseen by the World Health Organisaton (WHO), and the UNIVAX initiative of Mozambican private companies.
The Health Ministry has again warned citizens to comply strictly with Covid-19 preventive measures (such as wearing masks in public places, regular hand washing, social distancing, and avoiding crowds) in order to reduce the effects of the third wave of the pandemic, which has been striking Mozambique since the end of June.
Interviewed on Monday by Radio Mozambique, the director of the National Health Institute (INS), Ilesh Jani, said the peak of the third wave might be reached in about two weeks. Strict adherence to preventive measures could reduce the impact of the peak, and reduce the level of transmission of the virus.
A fourth wave would almost certainly occur, he added. To cope with this, the government was preparing to strengthen the preventive measures, while at the same time banking on mass vaccination.