Zambia News

600 health workers to be trained in IDSR, national weekly surveillance reporting expected to improve to over 70 percent…

 
Lusaka - Today, HE Ambassador of Ireland to Zambia, Ms Bronagh Carr and WHO Country Representative, Dr Nathan Bakyaita signed an agreement confirming €500,000 in funding from Irish Aid to WHO Zambia for the national capacity for emergency preparedness, response, recovery, and health surveillance systems project. 

Today 950,350 doses of COVID-19 vaccines arrived in Zambia. This consignment is the first shipment of a total of 4.5 million doses of Johnson and Johnson’s Janssen vaccine donated by the Government of Canada through the COVAX facility.

These vaccines have been procured and delivered by UNICEF’s Supply Division, which leads the procurement and supply of COVID-19 vaccines across the world. The vaccine doses were handed over to the Ministry of Health by Jenny Hill, the Head of Office of Canada’s Office of the High Commission in Zambia.

On 10 June 2022, the World Health Organization (WHO) in Zambia with the kind support of the Gavi Alliance donated 700 data collection electronic devices and related accessories worth One Hundred and Twenty Two Thousand, Two Hundred and Ninety US Dollars (US$122,290) to the Monitoring and Evaluation (M&E) Department of the Ministry of Health (MoH) to support the efficient and effective real-time data collection, monitoring and evaluation of the COVID-19 vaccination process and related information.

The Global Fund Differentiated Services Delivery (DSD) Strategic Initiatives (SI) invest in technical assistance (TA) in ten (10) priority countries until 2023, for the adoption of World Health Organization (WHO) recommended guidance, to incentivize increased program quality and efficiency along the HIV testing, treatment and advanced disease cascade, through promotion of best-practices and acceleration of country grant implementation.

 The WHO Country Representative, Dr. Nathan Bakyaita and the African Development Bank Manager, Mary Monyau on 1 July 2021 handed over a donation of COVID -19 supplies worth one million United States dollars to support the health system’s response to the pandemic. The donation which included personal protective equipment, ventilators, laboratory reagents and test kits has been made possible through support provided to the WHO Country Office by the African Development Bank working in collaboration with the Southern African Development Community (SADC).

Although Cholera is a preventable disease, it remains a significant public health problem globally. Each year, there are 1.3 to 4.0 million cases of cholera, and 21 000 to 143 000 deaths worldwide. Zambia has experienced cholera outbreaks since 1977 and the country’s last major outbreak lasted from October 2017 to June 2018 with a total of 5,935 reported cases and 114 deaths. The risk factors mainly include inadequate access to clean and safe water, poor sanitation facilities, poor solid waste management and consumption of contaminated food.

The Honourable Minister of Health, Dr. Jonas Chanda officially launched the COVID-19 vaccination on 14 April 2021 at the University Teaching Hospital in Lusaka. Zambia received the first consignment of 228,000 doses of the vaccine from the COVAX facility, a global Initiative representing a partnership between the World Health Organization (WHO), Global Alliance for Vaccines and Immunization (GAVI), United Nation’s Children Fund (UNICEF) and the Coalition for Epidemic Preparedness Innovations (CEPI) working on the equitable distribution of COVID-19 vaccines.