The private sector initiative, Univax, led by MPDC and other partners, which has made possible to import vaccines against COVID-19, through the Ministry of Health, for the immunization of workers and their dependents, has already vaccinated more than 70,000 people nationwide within the first 30 days.
72,491 people received the first dose and, as of the date of publication of this press release, 13,701 had also received the second dose. This means that in just one month, the initiative has already reached, in the first dose at least, 40% of the target population.
The campaign, which began on July 5, is being carried out by Mozambique’s private sector, either directly or through private medical service providers, or by Provincial Health Departments across the country, in a collaborative effort to massively immunize the largest possible number of workers and their dependents.
The Vero Cell vaccine from Chinese manufacturer Sinopharm arrived in Mozambique on June 30th. The 319 companies that joined the initiative purchased around 500,000 doses of vaccines, of which 139,590 were donated to the Government of Mozambique for the immunization of the marginalized population.
The objective of the initiative, which was born in April from a group of private sector entities, was to mitigate the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on the workforce of interested private sector actors and their families, ensuring the stability of the workforce, contributing to the reduction of pressure on the general budget of the Government as well, as to accelerating the ongoing vaccination process.
In this partnership, it was established that the partners and MISAU would make efforts for the acquisition and logistics of vaccines – which includes transport from the origin, storage, conservation, national distribution, and inoculation- either through private providers or through the different Provincial Health Departments and their partners.
This was the first initiative of its kind in Mozambique. In the Port of Maputo alone, more than 25.000 people have been vaccinated until the 5th August. The campaign is still on-going until the end of August.
