MINISTRY of Health Permanent Secretary for Technical Services Dr Kennedy Malama has called on citizens to consider getting vaccinated before the anticipated COVID-19 fourth wave.

In a statement, Wednesday, Dr Malama said the Ministry would soon commence the roll out of the Sinopharm vaccine in specified districts.

“As a country, we continue recording reducing positivity, hospitalizations and deaths and we hope this positive evolution continues. We reiterate our call to members of the public not to take chances even with the improved status. We further assure members of the public that soon guidance will be given following the review of the various restrictions which have been in place. Vaccination against COVID-19 remains a high impact intervention as it protects one from hospitalization, severe disease and death,” Dr Malama said.

“As a country, we will soon commence the roll out of the Sinopharm vaccine in specified districts this week in addition to the AstraZeneca and Johnson and Johnson vaccines we are currently administering. We are happy to report that we remain commodity secure as far as vaccines are concerned and will continue to acquire additional doses. We encourage members of the public to consider being vaccinated during this period before the anticipated fourth wave at the end of this year into early next year.”

Dr Malama said the country had in the last 24 hours administered 63 Dose one AstraZeneca, 185 Dose two AstraZeneca and 1,293 doses of Johnson and Johnson.

“In the last 24 hours, we administered 63 Dose one AstraZeneca, 185 Dose two AstraZeneca and 1,293 doses of Johnson and Johnson. The cumulative vaccinations broken down by dose and vaccine type are as follows: 309,595 Dose 1 vaccinations (302,696 AstraZeneca and 6,899 Sinopharm) and 248,712 fully vaccinated [i.e. 133,862 Johnson and Johnson, 108,514 Dose 2 AstraZeneca (36 percent of those that received dose 1); and 6,336 Dose 2 Sinopharm (92 percent of those that received dose 1)]. To date, we have utilised a cumulative 558,307 doses out of the 977,600 received in the country,” he said.

Dr Malama said the country had also recorded 130 new confirmed COVID-19 cases out of 3, 777 tests done in the last 24 hours.

“In the last 24 hours, we recorded 130 new confirmed COVID-19 cases out of 3,777 tests (three percent positivity). We remain committed to ongoing strengthening of our disease intelligence and testing pillars to enable us expeditiously detect resurgences in COVID-19. The distribution of the new cases including provincial positivity are as follows: Central six (two percent), Copperbelt five (two percent), Eastern nine (three percent), Luapula 13 (four percent), Lusaka eight (one percent), Muchinga seven (six percent), Northern 18 (six percent), North-western 21 (17 percent), Southern four (one percent), and Western 39 (eight percent). The cumulative number of confirmed cases recorded to date now stands at 205,107,” Dr Malama said.

Dr Malama said three new COVID-19 related deaths were reported in the last 24 hours.

“In the last 24 hours we recorded three new COVID-19 related deaths reported from Copperbelt (one), Eastern (one), and North-western (one) provinces. The cumulative number of COVID-19 related deaths recorded to date now stands at 3,586 (classified as 2,690 COVID-19 deaths and 896 COVID-19 associated deaths),” said Dr Malama.

“We discharged 157 patients (13 from facilities and 144 from community management), bringing the cumulative number of recoveries to 199,114 (97 percent recovered). We currently have 2,407 active cases, with 2,259 (94 percent) under community management and 148 (six percent) admitted to our COVID-19 isolation facilities. The number of patients requiring Oxygen therapy today has fallen to below a hundred for the first time since early June, with 97 (66 percent) of patients on Oxygen and 32 (22 percent) are in critical condition. We had nine new admissions in the last 24hours. The COVID-19 situation in the country has continued to improve and together we can completely bring it under control and return to normalcy soon.”