Zimbabwe Receives COVID-19 Shots From China

HARARE, ZIMABABWE - Zimbabwe on Saturday received a half-million Sinopharm shots against COVID-19 it bought from China, a development officials said would put its vaccination program back on track.

After the plane with the Sinopharm shots landed, Zimbabwe Finance Minister Mthuli Ncube said his government would ensure that the country has no vaccine shortages in the future. “We are receiving 2 million vaccines by end of next week, and after that we will order 1.5 million vaccines, and in the month of August will order another 3.5 million vaccines," Ncube said. "So you can see we are very focused in terms of our vaccine acquisition agenda. We will not have a shortage at all. We are headed for herd immunity and we will get there.” Zimbabwe is one of the African countries seeing recent increases in COVID-19 cases. On Saturday, Dr. John Mangwiro, Zimbabwe’s deputy health minister, said the government intensified its vaccination program to contain the spike in cases.