The Ministry of Health has disclosed that Zambia will take part in COVID-19 Vaccine trials.
Speaking today at the COVID-19 daily briefing, Director of Infectious Diseases Professor Lloyd Mulenga said that the Zambia was ready for vaccine trials as it has the capacity to monitor the safety and efficacy of any vaccine, adding that the country had the numbers and institutions to carry out the trials.
“For vaccine trials, we are ready, we have institutions in the country which can enroll both in the public sector,” Prof Mulenga said
Prof Mulenga further disclosed that public hospitals, public research institutions, and private research Institutions have enough people to meet the target of thousands of people required for phase three vaccine trials.
“When you talk of the phase three you are talking of thousands, we are not shy of those numbers and also we have enough capacity to monitor the safety of these vaccines besides the efficacy,” Prof Mulenga said.
Prof Mulenga said that it was important for Zambia to look at the COVID-19 Trial Vaccines as opportunities to know if Zambia’s population can be protected as well from the vaccine under trial.
“I think it’s important for the country to look at all these as opportunities, if there is a vaccine which meets the safety standards and also opportunities for the countries to participate, it’s good for us to know if our populations are going to be protected by this vaccine as well.”
He said achieving vaccination of 70 to 71 percent of the population is what would guarantee community protection from COVID-19 by creating what he described as the herd immunity, where there will only be a few that would be able to get the disease.
Prof Mulenga said currently, no COVID-19 vaccine had been approved by the World Health Organisation.
Meanwhile, speaking earlier at the same briefing, the Minister of Health Dr. Chitalu Chilufya has announced that Zambia recorded a suspected COVID-19 death of a 66-year-old male who presented hypertension and succumbed to the condition before results were released.
He said the results will be availed to the public in due course. Dr. Chilufya has however indicated that 162 new cases have been recorded out of 1017 tests conducted bringing the cumulative number of cases to 8663 countrywide.
He said frontline health workers continue to be at risk and four of them have been found positive out of the tests conducted.
He said 83 patients have been admitted to the Levy Mwanawasa COVID-19 center 32 of whom require oxygen support 5 are in critical condition and admitted in the intensive care unit while 33 patients are admitted in various health facilities countrywide.
Cumulatively the number of deaths stands at 246, 7 401 recoveries.
Dr. Chilufya has since called on Zambians to reduce community spread by adhering to the COVID-19 guidelines.
“We have been talking about interventions that we need to conduct and these interventions have been masking up, watching the distance, watching crowding places, staying home and washing your hands and ensuring that you seek medical attention early if you are symptomatic,” he emphasized.
Zambia to participate in covid-19 vaccine trials? Individuals always reserve the right to choose, if not we’re a dictatorship.
Why can’t countries developing the vaccine try it on the needed thousands of their own citizens?
This nonsense of herd immunity should be dropped. It nearly burnt Boris’ fingers.
Guys muzikambako vanzelu naimwe. Zambia will take part in COVID-19 Vaccine trials. Which trials? There are many vaccine trials and you cant just say any trials are welcome. Ni u Guinea pig uwu. There are trials in Russia, France, USA Britain, China so which trials?
Normally this kind of announcement should have at least SOME detail! The article says Mulenga “disclosed” but disclosed what exactly? There is nothing here!
Maybe it’s just lazy reporting from LT… or is MOH being intentionally vague? Which country and which research team are we talking about? Is the research credible? What safeguards are in place and how are we know this not just Mulenga, Chilufya and cohorts selling Zambians as guinea pigs to the highest bidder? Come to Africa, for the right price we have lot’s of people you can trial anything on!
Excellent. Good that we are doing our part to help the entire world. This is the true characteristic of being zambian unlike the behaviour we see from those useless dogs in diaspora and upnd.
Speaking of which, today we picked up the dogs I bought for my kids. We have decided to name the two dogs, HH and UPND.
My daughter also wants a cat which we will name tarino in honour of tarino the p.u.s.s.y
WE KNEW ABOUT THIS ABOUT 4 MONTHS AGO. FIVE AFRICAN COUNTRIES WERE PICKED. NIGERIAN PARLIAMENT REJECTED UNTIL BILL GATES BRIBED THEM. THE 5 COUNTRIES HAVE BEEN BLOWING UP COVID-19 FAKE NUMBERS TO CONVINCE CITIZENS TO TAKE THE VACCINE. DONT TAKE THE VACCINE OUR PEOPLE.
Wala do it some place else when if works bring it here zambians dont go there
When you have thieves in leadership everything goes…even sacrificing peoples lives to be used as Guinea pigs. To them its as easy as selling us to be Chink slaves.
Go back to playing “N3z the coon” and post about your fictional muzungu wife and being member of UPND….shameless young boy. Thank god for LT to reintroduce the flags or else this site would have been crowded with Bowman & Co all based in UK.
No one is interested in your usual diatribe.
50 years ago a drug called thalidomide was used by pregnant women for the treatment of morning sickness. The drug did its job perfectly. But it was teratogenic.
The majority of these women gave birth to babies with a condition called phocomelia… their babies had limbs that resembled the fins of seals!
This is the reality of medicine.
A drug that has the experience of mere weeks will be tested on the thousands? In Zambia? Are we serious??
Decision to test citizens on this scale should go to Cabinet and Parliament. Don’t announce an undertaking bordering on people’s health like you are talking about selling Vitumbuwa. Let Parliament debate this before you kill people.
Why does KZ act worse than a mentally ill person. Busy insulting people abroad, but excited for products, money, services and favours from abroad. This is what Bembas call ubututu, worse than a fontini. How glad I’m we are not Facebook buddies, I would have disliked him, even though I cannot hate him because he is human like me, a fellow citizen, wakwasu and the Lord commands us to even love our enemies; and KZ is not even an enemy but a mere irritant ngati chusi mumenso.
GUNDIXY – Dont mistake the real Facebook page for this UK based impostor youngster, you honestly think KZ has time to be blogging everyday on every topic..really laughable…the man has an attention span of a housefly with a phone that never stops ringing.
StreetKid – The Boers did the same thing went into shanty townships wanting to vaccinate blacks for free but what they were doing is actually infecting them with HIV..in the 1940s the US govt went around black neighborhoods injecting people with syphilis and lieing to them that they were administering a vaccine.
And we have corrupt leaders who two months ago said there will be no tests but as soon as they hear monetary incentives they go running like dogs….do you honestly think Rwanda would sink this low..its leader knows the West inside out.
Let the MOH test the vaccine on UPND Covid19 sick members so the can campaign and lose again
I PERSONALLY WILL NOT TAKE THIS VACCINE
IT IS MY CHOICE
WHAT HAPPENED TO THE VACCINE ON ELEPHANTIASIS?
WHY HAVE WE FAILED TO EVEN COME UP WITH OUR OWN VACCINE
WHY SHOULD WE ALLOW OTHER COUNTRIES O DISCRIMINATE US AND USE US AS GUINEA PIGS
MY FAMILY WILL NOT TAKE THIS SO CALLED UNPROVEN VACCINE
I HAVE MY RIGHTS AND WILL CHOOSE NOT TO TAKE IT
The interesting thing is the unproven vaccines are free courtesy of China and Russia.
Don’t blame the west this time. The vaccines in the western world have not been approved yet and are undergoing stringent tests.
Zambian guinea pigs. Maybe China can right off $15 billion from the debt
Please refer to sciencemag Vol 368, Issue 6494 published on May 29th, 2020. Editorial titled COVID-19 RESEARCH IN AFRICA by Linda-Gail Bekker & Valerie Mizrahi.
Our government had signed up for trails even at the time when Zambia had Zero to Ten Covid-19 cases. Zambia had signed up for trails as early as March, 2020.
Ba Chilufya tekanyeni. Problem with Chilufya bamudyesamo so apa ba big pharma. A vaccine takes years to develop. Bushe just because basungu who have developed it then it’s safe? Tekanyeni. Let them test it on their people first then study the side effects. Trouble with doctors and these so called professors, they are highly compromised individuals. They are on the payroll of pfizer and others. Never trust these dogs.
70 to 71% of the population getting infected would present an unacceptable death toll. Do not forget that certain people have underlying health issues and this so-called Herd Immunity will put them in trouble.
Let them take the vaccine to North Africa, no North African country will allow them to kill people. Why should zambia accept a vaccine when the rats in China couldn’t even be tested with it. China, Italy or Europe hasn’t tested the vaccine to their people except some dogs and rats, and the only monkeys they think can get killed are the Zambian people.
Wake up guys, it’s not a vaccine. You think the outside world loves you so much that they can spend days and nights to design a vaccine to save you when they are busy slaughtering blacks on live television and in the streets with bullets and kneeling on their necks?
very soon all black people will be extinct in Africa due to this vaccine. They brought you TB, they brought you smallpox and chicken pox and measles, They brought you…
Purely from a position of ignorance, here are some questions I have: 1. Doesn’t Africa have facilities to do vaccine research? 2. Are there any active clusters checking on alternative treatments (like the Madagascar Organics)? 3. What does it take to actually put up a virology lab and do research into these pathogens? 4. Should it always have to be the West testing stuff on us? Can we not test OUR vaccines on THEM? If these questions are too mundane please check my opening statement. It could be sheer ignorance and underestimation on my part.
Let this man start first followed by Lusambo .Then KZ with a UK IP address will get his vaccine on his massive d!<k head
How much will they pocket again to allow Zambians to be a” testingfield”?
Start with Lusaka, Luapula, Northen, Muchinga and Eatern Provinces
@Big MO
Did you read the research article closely? Zambia signed up for “Chloroquine Repurposing for Novel Coronavirus Mitigation Trial” and not vaccine trial as you are suggesting. See below.
“Cameroon, Zambia, Zimbabwe, Uganda, and South Africa are applying for ethical and regulatory approval for the Chloroquine Repurposing to Health Workers for Novel Coronavirus Mitigation Trial (supported by Washington University School of Medicine and the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation)”
The unproven vaccines are being spearheaded by China and Russia
Kongola not my fault you have a ka small one. ****** kobe