By staff reporter
The Minister of Finance and Economic Development, Professor Mthuli Ncube said the country had a potential to purchase vaccines to inoculate the entire population of Zimbabwe against the deadly COVID-19 pandemic.
“With some innovative financial structuring and use of the 2020 budget surplus, we can purchase vaccines to inoculate the entire population of Zimbabwe,” said Prof Ncube.
He reasoned that the vaccine was cheaper than the costs of Personal Protective Equipment (PPE), economic costs of lockdowns, and socio-psychological effects.
Zimbabwe introduced level 4 lockdown to contain the highly infectious disease, which has so far claimed over a thousand lives and infected over 32 000 people. The 30-day lockdown which was supposed to end on the 30 January 2021 was extended by 14 days to the 15th of February 2021, to consolidate the stability that was witnessed due to the lockdown measures.
Minister Ncube revealed that Treasury had set aside USD 100 million for the acquisition of 20 million doses for the vaccination of 10 million people, to achieve herd immunity. He said the Government welcome support from the private sector and development partners.
The Government of Zimbabwe, Prof Ncube revealed, was in negotiations with various sources of vaccines such as COVAX, China, India, Russia, and African Union initiative. He added that the choice of vaccines to be acquired will be driven by availability, access, efficacy and pricing.
He said if Government revenues for the year 2020, which stood at Z$182.6 billion, was combined with prudent expenditure management, this would yield additional resources for the purchase of the COVID-19 vaccine.
The Minister said in 2020, Government spent Z$25 billion on the fight against COVID-19. He said this amount excluded the stimulus package. The resources, he said, covered different aspects such as risk allowances of frontline workers and others, upgrade of health facilities, drugs, PPEs, and lockdown enforcement.
