Mozambique: Authorities consider expanding cold chain to vaccinate all over-12s

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Mozambique: Authorities consider expanding cold chain to vaccinate all over-12s

9:32 CAT | 22 Nov 2021

File photo: MISAU

Mozambique’s national health authorities are considering expanding the cold chain for vaccines against covid-19 in order to enable the vaccination of everyone over the age of 12.

“The country is currently also considering vaccinating people over the age of twelve,” said the minister of health, Armindo Tiago. “The quantity and target group is under study, because we have to see our logistical capacity for storage and distribution of vaccines applicable” for people from that age.

The minister, wo was speaking to journalists in the city of Beira on the occasion of a celebration of World Prematurity Day, said that the vaccines in question require “very complex” storage conditions, as they need to be kept at minus 70 degrees Celsius.

“These vaccines have a level of storage and management that is the most complex, they are vaccines that must be stored at minus seventy degrees and in the country, with the exception of Maputo, there is no [refrigeration] capacity” to store them,” he said.

The Ministry of Health is, he added, assessing the “possibility of acquiring” storage facilities and then, at the same time, ensuring that studies are carried out on the target group, aged between 12 and 17.

Mozambique is experiencing a period of “low transmission of Covid-19 in all provinces,” the minister said.

So far there have been 1,936 deaths associated with the disease and a cumulative 151,472 confirmed infections, with 98% of these patients having recovered.

Since the start of vaccination on 8 March, about 6 million people have been vaccinated in Mozambique, of which about half are now fully immunised.

Source: Lusa