Matabeleland North province is in dire need of fuel and vehicles to transport vaccines to rural health clinics, a health official has said.
Munekayi Padingani, the province’s medical director told CITE that some districts have seen delays in delivering of the Sinopharm vaccines that were delivered to the province last week and that as a result, has hampered the speed of the roll-out plan.
“The challenge that we have for now is transport and fuel and that has caused some delays in delivering the vaccines where they are needed in real time,” Padingani said.
“This challenge is not in all the districts but we have Nkayi, Binga and Tsholotsho that is expiriencing such.”
Padingani called on well-wishers to assist in the process of distributing vaccines as the health ministry is not able to fully facilitate the distribution in real time. What people have to understand is that Covid-19 is not the ministry of health problem alone.”
Padingani called on stakeholders in the province to assist with transport. “We need to work together to make sure that we reach the number that we want to reach.”
The province recently received 65 000 vaccines and hotspot Covid-19 districts such as Hwange are prioritised.
Since the vaccination rollout began in March in the province, the health ministry reported that 55 155 Matabeleland North residents have been fully vaccinated while 83 571 have received their first dose.
As of Monday, the province recorded four deaths and 214 new cases.
Source: Centre for Innovation and Technology
