By ‘Majirata Latela
The minister of health Semano Sekatle has reported to the World Health Organisation during a live yesterday’s press briefing held for the African region that Lesotho’s first batch of the 36 000 vaccine doses has been wiped out after 36 819 people got vaccinated.
The number of people inoculated exceeded the number of doses received due to the fact that one dose can vaccinate about 12 people.
According to Sekatle back in March this year the country was expecting 132 000 vaccines from the Covax facility but only received 36 000 doses due to the existing challenges of the supply which made them to adopt the saying that half a loaf is better than no bread.
“I am glad to report that the 36 000 doses we have today managed vaccinate 36 819 people following strictly the deployment vaccination plan, we have now partially covered the first phase of the plan which covered front line workers, health workers and vulnerable people with comorbid diseases.
“We are glad today to report that we have managed to vaccinate 95 percent of our frontline workers, the doses that we had have been wiped out. We are now stuck while on the other hand the demand for vaccines has shot up.
“Our health centres had to return people without having them vaccinated. It was such an embarrassment to say the list but a big thank you to France for a recent donation to the Covax facility as that will save countries such as Lesotho,” he said.
Sekatle pleaded with other countries with surplus doses of vaccines to do the right thing to save lives and restore normalcy in the socio political economic activities of the world.
He believed that the Covid-19 vaccines are the last strong to save lives of many people globally.
He said Lesotho could have not enrolled the vaccines “if it were not because of their engagement into developing a comprehensive plan that would guide the vaccines programme.”
Sekatle concluded: “I thank all people who have and those that will join us in developing the vaccines plan.”
