BY ADRIN MWANZA
LUSAKA residents yesterday scrambled for the newly acquired Johnson and Johnson Covid-19 vaccine with over 3,000 people getting the jab on the second day of administering it.
Ministry of Health permanent Dr Kennedy Malama said that a total of 3,333 Johnson and Johnson doses had been administered on the second day of rolling out the vaccine.
Dr Malama said that they had administered 4,263 Dose 1 and 3,962 Dose 2 AstraZeneca vaccinations as well as 3,333 doses of Johnson and Johnson.
He said the cumulative number of vaccinations to date stood at 256,059 and that only 29 new COVID-19 related deaths were reported in the last 24 hours. Dr Malama said that 21 were classified as COVID-19 deaths with eight as COVID-19 related deaths.
He said the Copperbelt recorded nine deaths, Lusaka Seven, Eastern Five, Luapula, Northern two, Central, North-Western, Southern and Western all recorded a death each.
Dr Malama said the cumulative number of COVID-19 related deaths recorded to date now stood at 3,250 classified as 2,432 COVID-19 deaths and 818 COVID-19 associated deaths.
He said although the country was not out of the third wave yet there was a reduction in positivity from 23 percent the previous week to 19 percent last week with the ministry targeting a positivity of less than fiver percent Dr Malama said that the hospitalisation levels had reduced over the weeks with 896 new admissions during the last week versus 1,189 total new admissions the week before that is a reduction of 24 percent.
He said the country was learning lessons locally and globally on a daily basis and continued strengthening the treatment of patients with COVID-19.
Dr Malama said even with the improvements the country had seen in the past few weeks people still had to keep their guard so as not to have a possible sudden surge in cases as seen in the second wave.
