Johnson & Johnson Vaccine turned down in Zimbabwe

ZIMBABWE has turned down its allocation of the Johnson & Johnson (J&J) COVID-19 vaccine, citing storage constraints and scepticism over possible side effects

Many countries in the West stopped the use of the Johnson & Johnson vaccine in April to investigate links to cases of a very rare, potentially life-threatening condition involving blood clots and low platelet counts.

Zimbabwe, however, said it was not ready to receive the vaccine.

“Government notes that there is an allocation of the Johnson & Johnson vaccine due for August. I wish to advise that government is not yet ready to participate in August allocations as measures are still being put in place to establish the cold chain management framework for the vaccine,” Finance ministry secretary George Guvamatanga said in a letter addressed to African Export-Import Bank (Afreximbank)’s regional chief operations officer Humphrey Nwago.

Zimbabwe has to date received just over 1,735 million doses of Sinopharm, Sinovac and Covaxin.