MBABANE – The United States of America government has donated 302 000 doses of the Johnson and Johnson vaccine to the Kingdom of Eswatini.
According to the Ministry of Health, the vaccine is expected to arrive into the country before month end. In a statement released by the ministry today the vaccine has been donated through the COVAX facility.
“The Ministry of Health is expecting the delivery of 302 400 doses of the Johnson and Johnson vaccine, donated by the Government of the United States of America through the COVAX Facility Dose Sharing Mechanism, by the end of July,” stated the minister of Health Lizzie Nkosi.
She stated that the ministry will target all frontline workers across the different sectors of the economy. She said the target is to administer all these doses by the end of August.
“We have partnered with various sector organisations to support in terms of identifying and registering frontline workers to enable us to identify the optimal locations for vaccination sites and plan the rapid deployment of teams to cover the ground as fast as possible,” she said.
She said government has been working with the private sector since the beginning of the 2 wave of COVID-19 response.
“We will be using various delivery avenues; which include but are not limited to Tinkhundla centres, government fixed clinics, private sector clinics and others. Additionally, from the beginning of August, we will be receiving tranches of the AstraZeneca Vaccine which will total 170 000 doses by the end of August and 100 620 doses of the Pfizer BioNTech vaccine by the end of September. These doses will be used to continue with the age tearing vaccination approach targeting the remaining 60 years and above, then cover those 50 years and above and will continue moving along the age categories until we have covered the entire eligible population. We request the Nation not to panic as we have enough vaccines to cover the eligible population and we urge for patience as we await the delivery of these vaccines and steadily go through the inoculation campaign which will ensure that nobody is missed,” stated the minister.
She explained that the vaccination plan involves the use of two highways to speed up the rollout of the vaccine.
This, she said, involve the highway One (1) which is the roving Tinkhundla vaccination sites and the Highway Two that is the mixture of fixed vaccination sites and roving vaccination teams that will be visiting identified sites run by the Ministry of Health working with stakeholders including the private sector.
“This will assist in speeding up the vaccination rollout. A full announcement of the sites to be utilised will be made once the vaccines have arrived in-country and will also be available in the following link http://eswatinihealth.org/schedule-hcw,” she said.
In addition, the minister stated that government has not made payment from the E200 million.
“As shared by various other African countries, including the World Health Organization, African countries, including Eswatini have struggled to gain access to purchase vaccines with our finances. Currently, only 1.5% of the African population is fully vaccinated. We so far have commitments from the vaccine manufacturers and 3
payment will be made upon each delivery. The COVAX facility deliveries have enabled Eswatini, and many African countries, to roll out vaccinations,” she said.
“Government would like to thank the Government of the United States of America for their donation, through the COVAX facility, of Johnson & Johnson doses, AstraZeneca and Oxford University for the donation 500 000 doses for research purposes, the Government of the Republic of India for the donation of 20 000 AstraZeneca Covishield doses and the COVAX facility for the provision of doses that enabled us to kick start the vaccination programme in the country,” she said.
