Botswana Government will on Sunday afternoon receive 200 000 doses of Sinovac vaccines from China.
The arrival of the doses will be the third batch to arrive after the country received a donation of 30,000 doses of the CoviShield vaccine from India earlier in March, as well as the 24 000 doses of the AstraZeneca vaccine which arrived in the country at the end of March as part of the first allocation of the over 100 000 doses of COVID-19 vaccines procured by the Government of Botswana from the COVAX Facility.
According to the latest update, the 200 00 doses of Sinovac vaccines donated by the Chinese government to Botswana are scheduled to arrive at the Sir Seretse Khama International Airport on April 25 at around 1415hrs. Officials from the ministry of health and wellness will join Chinese Ambassador HE Wang Xuefeng to receive the vaccines.
The Chinese government has described the donation as “yet another milestone of the profound friendship and solidarity between China and Botswana in the joint fight against the pandemic.”
Earlier in the year when addressing the nation on television, President Mokgweetsi Masisi promised what he termed “a multiple-vaccine approach to ensure that we do not put the entire population at risk in the event that one of the vaccines underperforms.”
So far Botswana has registered 45 855 Covid-19 cases with 691 already killed by the virus. 41 338 have since recoverd. On Wednesday this week, 1153 new cases were reported, with 7 new deaths since another report on Monday. Just about 32 000 people have been vaccinated for Covid-19 throughout the country.
Ahead of the arrival of the donated vaccine, China has in the past donated personal protective equipment (PPEs), ventilators, surgical masks, medical gloves, isolation shoes, extraction kits, sanitizers as well as technical assistance to health authorities to implement protocols aimed at curbing the spread of the disease.
