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Mashudu Netsianda, Senior Reporter
MEDICAL experts have urged Zimbabweans to have confidence in vaccines, saying being vaccinated will help curtail the spread of the Covid-19 pandemic.

President Mnangagwa said the vaccination of citizens will start this week following the arrival of 200 000 doses of vaccines from China yesterday.

Zimbabwe has also purchased 600 000 jabs from China that are expected to be delivered next month while more will be purchased from Russia.

The country has set aside US$100 million to buy Covid-19 vaccines.

Frontline health workers, ports of entry officials and funeral parlour workers will be among the first to be vaccinated for Covid-19.

The chronically ill, the elderly, prisoners and those living in refugee camps will also be prioritised as well as staff at all schools.

The training of those who will administer the vaccines is ongoing.

In interviews yesterday, doctors in Bulawayo said the vaccination programme, which Government is set to roll out this week, will help contain transmissions.

A consultant paediatrician Dr Wedu Ndebele said the general advantage of vaccination is that in the event that one is vaccinated, the infection would be much milder, if they contract the virus.

“For us to get what we call herd immunity there should be enough people vaccinated to curtail or stop the transmission. Usually for you to do that you need to vaccinate about two thirds of the population and that is why we are talking of between 60 to 70 percent of the population,” he said.

“As you can see now all the cases that we are getting are from the communities, which means that transmissions are from person to person. If enough people are vaccinated, it means that even if one person has Covid-19 and gets into contact with a vaccinated person that person won’t be infected. We encourage people to get vaccinated especially those that are at high risk. In terms of the efficacy the experts will guide us.”

Another top health expert, Dr Rita Dlodlo said she fully supports the vaccination programme as it will also reduce the number of Covid-19 related deaths.

“I am pro-vaccination because you will note that for all the diseases for which vaccines were accessed, lives have been saved and for example, in Zimbabwe millions of children’s lives have been saved under the national immunisation programmes,” she said.

“As Covid-19 is also a threat in our community, especially productive members of the community, we need to employ all protocol measures to prevent the spread so I support the roll out programme of these vaccines. This is a way of creating immunity within a community or population.”

Dr Dlodlo said Covid-19 vaccines are critical tools for helping bring the pandemic under control when combined with effective testing and existing prevention measures.

“There are currently more than 200 additional vaccine candidates and more than 50 have reached clinical trial stage and 67 may have passed that stage and their results have been published in reputable medical journals,” she said.

“A number of these vaccine candidates are in Phase III clinical trials, which is the final step before a vaccine is approved. However, some vaccines may be very good candidates, but unfortunately, we can’t use them in Zimbabwe because of temperatures. In terms of storage the temperature range is from +2 to +8 degrees Celsius.”

Bulawayo city health director Dr Edwin Sibanda said he cannot speak authoritatively on what the Sinopharm vaccines from China can do, but urged Zimbabweans to get vaccinated.

“Just like any other vaccine that we have been having such as flu administered in most countries, the importance of any vaccination and the whole concept of herd immunity is like if you are burning grass and for a fire to spread fast or slow down, it depends on how much dry grass can burn,” he said.

“If there are patches of green grass they may tend to slow down and in the same way with a vaccine if given to certain critical mass of people who therefore cannot either transmit or suffer from the disease because they are vaccinated or immune, they will then slow down the spread of the virus.”

Dr Sibanda said vaccination will prevent deaths and ultimately the transmission from person to person. -@mashnets