Donated Chinese Covid jabs ‘ready for collection’
About 100 000 Covid-19 vaccine doses donated by the Chinese government to Namibia were ready for collection, the Chinese embassy spokesperson Helen Lu said yesterday.
The Chinese embassy last month announced it had donated 100 000 Covid-19 vaccines, while it also said it had listed Namibia among the priority countries for purchasing the sought-after vaccines, manufactured in that country, to help fight the pandemic.
“The Chinese government is ready. So far, China has assisted about 53 countries in the world with Covid-19 doses. We are just waiting for the authorisation from the Namibian side to collect the doses. The ball is on the Namibian side,” she indicated.
A further 30 000 vaccine doses were also pledged by the Indian government last month. Indian High Commissioner to Namibia Prashant Agrawal said his country and Namibia were still in consultation on acquiring the doses.
“We are closely in touch to arrange for this vaccine to be made available as soon as possible. I am happy to inform you that the vaccine the African countries are getting under Covax is being supplied by the Serum Institute of India. Even under Covax, India remains committed to providing vaccines to our African partners,” he assured yesterday. Millions of coronavirus doses, procured through the Covax scheme, reached many parts of Africa this week, with the likes of Angola, Nigeria, Ghana and Côte d’Ivoire among the recipients as the global roll-out of Covax vaccines accelerates.
Although there was no immediate response on when Namibia would collect the donated vaccines in China, health ministry executive director Ben Nangombe yesterday reiterated the country was expecting its first batch of the Oxford/AstraZeneca vaccine this month for 20% of the population.
“On the arrival date of the Covid-19 vaccine in the country, we are engaging constantly with the Covax facility and Gavi (the Vaccine Alliance). They say the various countries have been allocated their doses. Namibia is among those countries allocated doses. They will be delivering throughout March going forward. They just said through March, but they didn’t give us the exact date for Namibia. But as we can see neighbouring Angola and others received theirs recently. Information they provided is that they are delivering through March,” Nangombe said.
Apart from the Covax scheme, Namibia has been in discussion with manufacturers of Covid-19 vaccines in China, Russia, India, and the United States for additional vaccine supply to cover the remaining 40% of the population.
SA variant
Meanwhile, Nangombe yesterday said Namibia was still waiting for test results following an investigation on whether the South African variant is prevalent in the country. “The national institute for communicable diseases said the results will be here this week. So, we expect them this week,” he noted.