CoVID-19 booster doses ready as Ministry of Health receives a consignment of 277,000 doses of Astrazeneca vaccine

Receiving the consignment at Kamuzu International Airport

*  After Malawi Immunization Technical Advisory Group submitted its recommendations on the booster dose
* The booster doses are for eligible individuals with at least 3 months after the primary series of the vaccinations
* As of Sunday, February 27, 803,626 people are fully vaccinated

By Fostina Mkandawire, MANA & Duncan Mlanjira, Maravi Express

Upon receiving a consignment of 277,000 doses of Astrazeneca CoVID-19 vaccine from Japanese Government on Saturday at Kamuzu International Airport in Lilongwe, Minister of Health announced that the Malawi Immunization Technical Advisory Group has now submitted its recommendations to the Ministry that people are being encouraged to get a booster dose of the vaccines.

A booster dose is an additional dose of the COVID-19 vaccine after you have taken the primary series and the Minister of Health Khumbize Kandondo Chiponda said the recommendation is that a booster dose for eligible individuals is given at least 3 months after the primary series of the vaccinations.

The risk groups include health workers, people with commorbidities and the elderly (above 60 years old) should be prioritised for the booster dose.

“The booster dose has been recommended because of new emerging scientific information,” the Minister said. “It has been observed that there is a waning protection against infection or disease over time.

“A booster dose is also needed to provide sufficient protection from emerging variants of concern and the booster is needed to provide adequate protection to high risk groups.”

On accepting the consignment of the vaccine, Kandondo Chiponda said it had arrived in the country on time because most health facilities had run out of stock.

Chiponda, therefore, called upon everyone who took the first dose of Astrazeneca vaccine to go for the second dose to ensure maximum protection.

Ambassador of Japan to Malawi, His Excellency Satoshi Iwakiri said Japan is committed to donating more COVID-19 vaccines to Malawi to address emerging needs of the vaccine.

He said they consider the limited shelf-life and generally low uptake of the vaccine therefore such vaccines are limited to manageable quantities at a time, to minimize wastage.

“We are confident that Malawi will make use of the offer for additional vaccines in accordance with the country’s needs.

These vaccines are a donation from the Japanese Government through the COVAX Facility and will be available in all the vaccination sites from Monday.

All those that are due for the second dose of AstraZeneca are encouraged to visit the nearest vaccination site for their second jab.

The vaccination sites now have three types of vaccines — the one-off Johnson and Johnson, Pfizer and AstraZeneca.

As of Sunday, February 27, 803,626 people are fully vaccinated, from the total of 1,920,760 doses that have been administered in the country so far since last year.

Cumulatively 1,098,898 have received the first dose of AstraZeneca vaccine with 399,078 had their second dose of respectively while 403,525 have received the one-off Johnson & Johnson and 18,236 people have received first dose of Pfizer vaccine.

A situation report from the presidential taskforce on CoVID-19, said over the past 24 hours, 85 people have received Johnson & Johnson; three their first dose of Pfizer vaccine. Cumulatively, 803,626 people are fully vaccinated.

The country registered 14 new CoVID-19 cases in the past 24 hours; 64 new recoveries and two deaths — one each from Blantyre and Lilongwe and both unvaccinated.

All new cases are locally transmitted — four each from Blantyre and Lilongwe, three from Ntcheu, and one each from Balaka, Mulanje, and Nsanje districts.

Since the outbreak of the pandemic, Malawi has recorded 85,328 cases including 2,615 deaths at case fatality rate of 3.06%) and of these, 2,829 were imported infections and 82,499 are locally transmitted.

Cumulatively, 75,578 cases have now recovered at the rate of 88.57% while 232 were lost to follow-up — bringing the total number of active cases to 6,903.

There are also worrying trends of new admissions as in the past 24 hours, there were two new in treatment units who are not vaccinated while six were discharged — giving active cases that are currently hospitalised to 29 with Blantyre having the highest as 13 followed by six in Lilongwe, three in Mulanje, two in Mangochi, and one each from Chiradzulu, Dowa, Nsanje, Salima, and Zomba districts.

The taskforce also announced that the Johnson & Johnson is now a two dose vaccine given twice at an interval of 12 weeks apart to those aged 18 years and above; AstraZeneca also a two dose vaccine given twice at an interval of 12 weeks apart to those aged 18 years and above and the Pfizer as a two dose vaccine given twice at an interval of four weeks apart to those aged 12 years and above.