Zimbabwe Thursday took delivery of the first batch of the Russian Sputnik V vaccine COVID-19 vaccine from Russia.
An official handover ceremony was held in Harare Friday where President Emmerson Mnangagwa thanked his Russian counterpart, Vladimir Putin for continuing to strengthening relations between Zimbabwe and Russia.
President Mnangagwa reported that Zimbabwe received a consignment of 25 000 doses.
The vaccine’s purchase and delivery were financed by the world’s largest diamond mining company Alrosa based in Russia.
The vaccine was supplied as part of Russia’s assistance to Zimbabwe in the anti-coronavirus fight. The Russian embassy said in a statement on its website:
_This gesture of goodwill corresponds to the Russian-Zimbabwean accords at the highest level and is consistent with the decisions by the intergovernmental commission for economic, trade, scientific and technical cooperation and testifies to Moscow’s commitment to further building up a mutually advantageous partnership based on the principles of solidarity and mutual support in the most difficult times, which are inherent in the Russia-Zimbabwe relations._
_The work by the Alrosa Zimbabwe venture unfolding in Zimbabwe is a vivid example of the consistent development of bilateral cooperation in natural resources extraction. The enterprise that was set up in December 2019 jointly with the Zimbabwe national diamond company is consistently prospecting new deposits._
Zimbabwean authorities approved the Russian vaccine for emergency use on March 9 this year. Along with Russia’s Sputnik V, Zimbabwe has approved the Chinese vaccines produced by Sinopharm and Sinovac and the Indian Covaxin jab.
The Minister of Information, Publicity and Broadcasting Services Monica Mutsvangwa announced that the next batches of the Sputnik V vaccine would be purchased through the National Fund run by the country’s Finance and Economic Development Ministry.
Zimbabwe launched a nationwide coronavirus vaccination campaign on February 18 and as many as 385 000 people or 2.6% of the country’s population have been fully vaccinated.
More: Pindula News; Tass