BY ADRIAN MWANZA
THE ministry of Health has acquired an additional 151,000 doses of the Johnson and Johnson Covid-19 vaccines with the consignment expected in the country today.
According to Permanent secretary for Technical Services Dr Kennedy Malama the new doses are expected in the country this afternoon aboard an Emirates flight around 12:30 hours. Dr Malama said that the new dose would be an addition to the first consignment and that it was from the United States of America through the Covax project.
He said that government had purchased a total of 4.4 million doses of the Johnson and Johnson vaccine and was just waiting for the delivery before the end of the third quarter.
Dr Malama said that the ministry was waiting for another dose of the AstraZeneca vaccine which would be in the country by the end of the month. ‘’The ministry is very cautious and cannot administer vaccines that have not been approved worldwide by established organisations,’’ he said.
He said a total of 100000 individuals had been fully vaccinated which included the two doses of the AstraZeneca and the single dose of the Johnson and Johnson. And Dr Malama also said that they had recorded a total of 21 Covid-19 related deaths in the country in the last 24 hours.
He said he was happy with the rate of cases but said they had still not met their target of the five percent positivity rate. Dr Malama said the ministry had noted that certain individuals were taking Azithromycin to cure Covid-19 which was wrong because it was an antibiotic.
