Africa-Press – Tanzania. THE government has ordered more 2 million doses of sinopharm Covid-19 vaccine from China as ongoing vaccination exercise increased pace, it has been revealed
Chief Government Spokesperson Gerson Msigwa stated yesterday that the available 1,058,400 doses of Johnson & Johnson Covid-19 doses may not take long to finish considering increased turnout of people for getting the vaccine.
“As I have pleasure to announce that the government has already ordered other consignment of vaccines. We are expecting to receive another 2 million sinopharm doses of vaccine from China,” Mr Msigwa stated when speaking to journalists in Singida region during his weekly press conference on the execution of various government activities.
He said the government’s move to order new consignment was upon realizing that the available vaccines would complete in no time and many more Tanzanians would need vaccines. So far, over 400,000 people have been vaccinated.
He cited increased turnout of people in vaccination centres to an introduced outreach programme whereby health experts go to villages to educate people and bring vaccination to their areas.
“Through the outreach, our experts have spread all over the places, and we have got great successes and number of people vaccinated has reached 400,000 countrywide, and Tanzanians have started getting the vaccination at a high speed,” Mr Msigwa said.
He said during the first phase of awareness creation the government established 550 centres for awareness countrywide, and now it has decided to put centre at each 6780 vaccination centres countrywide.
He said the issue of fighting against the Covid-19Covid-19 is one of the big national agenda, which is also global concern.
He emphasized on giving the public proper information over the vaccine, calling on the media to play such role in supporting government’s efforts.
He also encouraged Tanzanians to continue taking precautionary measures.
Meanwhile, he said the government is commitment to ending shortage of edible oil in the country by putting workable mechanisms.
“In order to meet the high demand for edible oil in the country, we have started a strategic project on sunflower that will enable all peasants to cultivate big scale farms” he said adding;
The government will provide quality seeds and other farm inputs for smooth running of the project.
This exercise will go along with the provision of extension officers who will oversee the project to become a success.
“In fact, there is no need of buying cooking oil from outside because we have enough farmers who can do the job,” he stressed.
Mr Msigwa disclosed that as of now the country’s demand for edible oil was 640,000 tonnes while only 240,000 tonnes are produced in the country.
“The deficit is so huge that demands collective efforts from every stakeholder starting with the government, peasants, farmers and all stakeholders” he said.
According to him, over two million sunflower seeds were required to fill the gap.
