By Prisca Lumingu
Special Advisor to the President on Covid19 Roma Chilengi said government has advanced plans to capacitate several frontline facilities with modern oxygen plants to prepare for the coming covid19 4th wave.
Dr. Chilengi said these are production plants that would be able to sustain high flow oxygen and have capacity to pump oxygen into cylinders
He said this during a press briefing at State House yesterday to give guidance on the re-launch of the covid19 vaccination exercise which will be graced by President Hakainde Hichilema today.
He said government was still reminded of what hit the country during the 3th wave of the pandemic which suffocated the entire health system.
“At the pick of the 3rd wave, we ran out of oxygen, we didn’t have enough cylinders to meet the number of patents who needed to be on oxygen, we ran out of bed space, hence right now we need to prepare,” Dr. Chilengi said.
He said government was working with cooperating partners in mobilizing resources to ensure that the country was prepared to handle the fourth wave of the pandemic.
And Dr. Chilengi said it was important that everyone came on board by ensuing that they got vaccinated following the anticipated fourth wave,
He said the other way to prepare for the fourth wave was by ensuring that about 70 percent of the population was vaccinated against covid.
“This is the only way we will stop the more transmission in communities, to ensure that 70% of the population is vaccinated and government is saddened that only 3% of the population as up todate despite having a target of vaccinating at least 10% of the population by September 30 2021,” Dr. Chilengi said.
Dr. Chilengi said it was for the reason that government was changing the approach on the vaccination program by re-launching the exercise as a demonstration to the country on how government takes the covid19 situation seriously.
