Chinese Expats Receive Covid Vaccines While Zambians Are Forced To Wait

The government announced on Tuesday that all Chinese expatriates living in Zambia have been vaccinated against Covid-19 with doses of the Sinopharm vaccine provided by Beijing. Meanwhile, just 0.7% of native Zambians have received one vaccine dose, leaving even some frontline health workers still at risk from the virus. 

China provided some 13,600 vaccines for its nationals and promised to donate 100,000 more doses for Zambians. However, these additional vaccines have yet to be delivered. 

According to the Ministry of Health, 138,799 Zambians have received a shot of the AstraZeneca vaccine through the COVAX vaccine sharing facility. 

This puts the government markedly behind schedule. During this first phase of the rollout, 3.6 million people – 20% of the population – were meant to be vaccinated. 

The government has blamed the slowdown on an increased demand for the vaccines in India. Ministry official Kennedy Malama said the government had now “paused” the rollout while it was “reconciling data”. 

In March the government laid out plans to vaccinate all people over the age of 18 as part of the COVAX programme run by the World Health Organisation. Zambia was one of the last countries in Africa to sign up to this programme and begin vaccinating its population.

Prior to this, United Party for National Development leader Hakainde Hichilema had criticised the government for “sleeping on duty” by prioritising its re-election campaign over safeguarding the population. 

“They seem to be more interested in tightening their grip on the political side of the equation, in order to maintain political power,” Hichilema told Bloomberg in March.

“Front-line health staff, we’re putting them in harm’s way every single day they wake up and go to a clinic, to go to a hospital.” 

Yesterday Zambia recorded 149 new cases of Covid-19, with a weekly average of 130 new cases per day. The official death toll stands at 1,271, however experts estimate this could be much higher in reality.