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Mukudzei Chingwere in Montreux, Switzerland
A not-for-profit international health financing behemoth has pledged to aid, alleviate Zimbabwe’s healthcare funding gap after being impressed by Government’s consistent deployment of local resources towards healthcare.
Gavi Vaccine Alliance Managing Director of Country Programmes Delivery Mr Thabani Maphosa revealed these plans after meeting with Vice President and Minister of Health and Child Care Dr Constantino Chiwenga on the sidelines of the 5th edition of the Global Ministerial Summit being held here.
Gavi has operations in more than 73 countries in the world and meets a huge chunk of Governments’ vaccination bills.
Speaking after his meeting with the VP, Mr Maphosa said Zimbabwe had made a considerable impression and Gavi are thus moving in to curb the challenges that are maybe saddling the country.
“I had an opportunity to discuss with the Vice President (Dr Chiwenga) the state of the health system in Zimbabwe and the immunisation programme coming out of Covid-19, the type of lessons that have been learnt and how we can come together to help the country to strengthen its health system,” said Mr Maphosa.
“Zimbabwe has done very well on Covid-19, it is evident that Covid-19 has been kept at bay in the country.
“Zimbabwe has actually met its commitments as far as co-financing for vaccines, they have always paid on time, and it is something that we appreciate, so when we put our portion of the money we are actually putting and contributing to a country and a government that is also putting its own money.
“Zimbabwe has always had a strong immunisation programme. We have a set of resources that are ready to be availed to the Zimbabwean Government and they need to point us where they need to go to.
“But, with the Vice President, some of the things we discussed specifically was the opportunity to actually strengthen their cold chain and also to strengthen health workforce and to provide vaccines in a timely manner,” said Mr Maphosa.
Online Reporter