CELEBRATING ATTAINING 70% COVID-19 FULL VACCINATION COVERAGE

• Your Excellency the President of the Republic of Zambia,
  
  Mr. Hakainde Hichilema
• Cabinet Ministers
• Senior Government officials
• Members of the UN Country Team
• The media
• Ladies and gentlemen
• All protocols observed

I am honoured to represent the UN system in Zambia at this momentous occasion, to celebrate Zambia’s journey to reach 70% of full COVID-19 vaccination coverage of the targeted population.  Indeed, this is an achievement that deserves special recognition.

Let me at the outset appreciate everyone in Zambia who has been vaccinated, for   in protecting yourself you are protecting others. Great appreciation also, to all personnel in health and other sectors that provided support. Zambia has received global recognition for staying the course and ensuring that vaccines reach those that need them most.

This key milestone can be attributed to the Government’s leadership, partners’ coordination, commitment by donors and the support and contribution of the people of Zambia.

Your Excellency, Ladies and Gentlemen

Vaccination is among the critical interventions that contributed to the reduction in COVID-19 cases and hospitalisation during the pandemic.  At a global level the UN through UNICEF and WHO together with other partners collaborated to ensure production and delivery of effective, life-saving vaccines across the world—the largest ever global logistic effort. They also ensured acceleration of Research and Development, provided normative guidance on vaccine policy and strategy, regulation, vaccine safety, country readiness, social behaviour change materials, and cold chain support.

Your Excellency, Ladies and Gentlemen

We recall that in January 2022, as part of the restructuring of Global COVID -19 response support, the COVID-19 Vaccine Delivery Partnership was launched to support countries particularly those with least coverage to scale up the vaccination programme.

It was pleasing a few days ago, to learn that the Global Lead Coordinator for the COVID-19 Vaccine Delivery Partnership had congratulated Zambia for being the fastest country to achieve the needed progress on vaccination coverage from among 34 countries that were identified for concerted support.

The COVID-19 Vaccine Delivery Partnership, set up a collaboration between WHO, UNICEF and Gavi, to have “One Team, One Plan, One Budget”.

Through this initiative Zambia:

1. Received technical and funding support leading to:

• An expanded work force at different levels of the response in areas including Planning and Coordination, Monitoring and Evaluation, Vaccine Safety, Social Behaviour Change and Vaccine Management, Logistics and Cold chain.

2. The partnership also provided US$2,000,000 to support service delivery  
3. In addition, 16,446,040 doses of COVID-19 vaccines through the COVAX facility, were received representing 78% of the vaccines so far received in the country; and
4. The partnership also supported the leadership of Ministry of Health through the One Country Team based at the COVID-19 Emergency Operations Centre in the Ministry.

Your Excellency, Ladies and Gentlemen

WHO was also instrumental in supporting the upgrading of the COVID-19 server, procurement of over 1,100 tablets, provision of guidelines for service delivery and vaccine safety, vaccination cards, strengthening COVID-19 surveillance and through this supported strengthening of the pharmaco-vigilance system in Zambia to track any adverse effects and ensuring recipients are safe.

Under the platform of Access to COVID-19 Tools Accelerator Humanitarian Action for Children, UNICEF supported strengthening of cold chain systems including procurement and installation of an Ultra-Cold Chain (UCC) facility that can store up to 600,000 doses of the Pfizer vaccine, and an additional 10 UCC equipment installed at provincial level that can up to 2 million Pfizer doses.

Your Excellency, Ladies and Gentlemen

We have seen that countries with high vaccination rates are seeing fewer deaths from COVID-19 illness and their societies and economies opening-up. Life has become normal again, something we too are witnessing in Zambia.

Zambia now has more than eight point two million fully vaccinated people —thus over Eight million people are now protected from future waves of this virus, a reduced chance of infecting others, and a reduced chance of serious infection and death, or the long-term effects of COVID-19.

Once again, great commendation to the Government, to all personnel   involved in scaling up the vaccination programme. We also recognize and appreciate the generous funding from GAVI, Japan, the United States, Germany, Sweden, Ireland and other partners. No doubt, the strong and coordinated partnership was   key.  

As I close, allow me to say that the United Nations is pleased to be associated with the achievement to date, and we pledge our continued support to the Ministry of Health and the Government as a whole, to ensure a successful roll-out of safe, effective, and life-saving vaccines.

I thank You.