Former Zimbabwean Deputy Prime Minister Arthur Mutambara says if the Chinese were in a proactive and empowering partnership with Harare, clinical trials should have been done on the Sinopharm vaccine against the virulent SA Covid-19 variant in Zimbabwe or SA to test its efficacy.
“We could have established the efficacy of the Chinese drug against the SA variant before roll-out, just as he South Africans did with respect to the Oxford one before rollout, although they were late into the process as well,” said Mutambara, a professor of robotics engineering.
“There was plenty of time to run trials of the Chinese vaccine on these variants in Zimbabwe. Why should we depend on data and trials from other jurisdictions?”
Zimbabwe will start vaccinating its citizens on February 18 this week after taking delivery of the Chinese Sinopharm Covid-19 jabs yesterday, information minister Monica Mutsvangwa says. The immunization is voluntary.
Cabinet informed Zimbabweans that results of the genomic sequencing which was recently conducted indicate that the new South African Covid19 variant is dominating by 61%. The 2020 variant has receded.
