BY ADRIAN MWANZA
CHINA has promised to deliver two million doses of Sinopharm vaccines by the end of the year to help developing countries fight the deadly Covid-19 pandemic.
Chinese ambassador to Zambia Li Jie said during the arrival of the 100,000 doses of Sinopharm in Lusaka that China would ensure that it delivered the doses to the countries in need, Zambia inclusive.
The 100,000 doses of Sinopharm doses arrived aboard an Ethiopian Airlines flight around 12:30 hours yesterday.
Mr Jie said that China would continue supporting Zambia during the third wave of the pandemic by donating 100,000 doses to help combat the pandemic. He said China was a manufacturer of high quality doses and that Zambia would benefit from his country.
Meanwhile ministry of Health Permanent secretary for Technical Services, Dr Kennedy Malama said that the country had recorded a total of 15 new COVID-19 related deaths in the past 24 hours.
The deaths have gone up by three in the last 24 hours from 12 casualties to 15 with Copperbelt recording the highest number of 5 casualties, Southern was second with three 3 cases while Eastern, Lusaka and Western all had 2 cases with Northern recording only one case.
Dr Malama said the cumulative number of COVID-19 related deaths recorded to date now stood at 3,474 classified as 2,610 COVID-19 deaths and 864 COVID-19 associated deaths.
He said the country reported 527 new confirmed COVID-19 cases out of 6,996 tests with an eight percent positivity rate.
He said the ministry would not relent until Zambia reached less than five percent positivity in all Provinces and the last person was discharged from the health facilities.
We discharged 672 patients 41 from facilities and 631 from community management, bringing the cumulative number of recoveries to 191,836 with a 96% recovery rate.
Dr Malama said the cumulative number of vaccinations to date now stood at 302,222 with 188,219 fully vaccinated.
‘’To this effect we have continued to ramp up our Risk Communication and Community Engagement (RCCE) interventions in order to foster sustained behaviour change and ensure active participation and ownership of interventions by members of the public,’’ he said.
He said the ministry was grateful to the World Health Organisation, UNICEF and many stakeholders who continued to support the RCCE efforts.
