Speaking at Sir Seretse Khama International Airport, he said the 30 000 doses of Covishield vaccine, a gift from India, were the first batch of vaccines Botswana was expecting in the near future.

Mr Tsogwane said the vaccine would assist greatly in containment of the pandemic.

In an interview, Director of Health Services Dr Malebogo Kebabonye explained that the vaccine would be administered in two doses at intervals of eight to 12 weeks apart.

She said the vaccines would be stored at Central Medical Stores for quality checks to ensure that they were transported and received in the integrity they were intended to be in.

The exercise was undertaken to ensure that there was no breach and compromise to the vaccine, said Dr Kebabonye.

Saying the nation would be updated on the rollout by end of the week, she added: “We will still follow the phase approach and start with elderly people with underlying diseases”.
She stated that health workers would also be prioritised as they were included in phase one of the vaccination programme.
 

Dr Kebabonye said as vaccines continued to arrive, the vaccination programme would focus on places with high COVID-19 positive cases and mortality.
 

Dr Kebabonye said the intention was to cover as many people as possible with the first consignment.

In a separate interview, Indian high commissioner to Botswana Dr Rajesh Ranjan explained that the Covishield vaccine was developed by Oxford- AstraZeneca and manufactured by Serum Institute of India.

Dr Ranjan said the vaccine had been used successfully in India, the United Kingdom and other European countries, Asia as well as Africa.

He said the consignment should strengthen Botswana government efforts in controlling the spread of COVID-19.

The high commissioner pledged India’s continued support to Botswana in the fight against the pandemic.

India has donated more than 7.7 million doses of COVID-19 vaccines to 31 countries Botswana among them. ENDS