Botswana to resume COVID-19 vaccination campaign after administrative delay

Botswana’s health ministry said on Tuesday it expected the second phase of the country’s COVID-19 vaccination rollout program to resume very soon after the process to complete the assessment restarted. due diligence on all vaccines arriving in the country.

According to the ministry, the documentation that accompanied a recent shipment of COVID-19 vaccines was incomplete and, as a result, caused the assessment process to be temporarily halted.

Earlier this month, Botswana received more than 400,000 doses of Sinovac COVID-19 vaccine purchased through a bilateral agreement and on Saturday received more than 100,000 doses of AstraZeneca COVID-19 vaccine donated by the Germany.

“The Department of Health and Welfare released a public statement last week saying it was unable to complete the due diligence assessment of the Sinovac vaccine it recently received. This was due to the incomplete documentation that had accompanied the Sinovac vaccine, ”the ministry said in a statement.

“Members of the public are advised that said documentation was delivered on September 20, 2021. So this means that the process to complete the due diligence assessment that must be conducted on all vaccines arriving in the country has resumed.

The ministry said an evaluation of the two vaccines is expected to be completed “in the next few days” and that the vaccination campaign will resume “before the end of this week” with individual district health management teams (DHMTs) announcing their immunization schedules.

This second phase of the vaccination plan targets people aged 30 to 54 but started with people aged 45 to 54 due to a limited vaccine supply.

Botswana hopes to have vaccinated 64 percent of its target population by the end of October. At least 21.6% of the eligible population has so far been vaccinated, according to government data.