The consultancy NKC African Economics said today that Mozambique is unlikely to achieve the goal of vaccinating 17 million people by the end of the year, highlighting the expansion of the pandemic in the country’s northern provinces.
“Despite more than 1.2 million Mozambicans having received doses during the last month, it seems unlikely that the government will be able to meet the target of immunising 17 million citizens by the end of the year,” said the analysts of the African branch of British consultancy Oxford Economics.
In a commentary on the evolution of the pandemic in the country, sent to clients and to which Lusa had access, the analysts wrote that “the infrastructural difficulties in rural areas and the conflict in Cabo Delgado province, which has seen a sharp increase in the number of cases of covid-19, will be a challenge for health authorities.
During the month of August, the official number of active cases of covid-19 in the country dropped to 11 803, a 63% decrease since the end of July, acknowledge the analysts, who counter, however, that “in recent weeks there has been an increase in confirmed cases in the northern provinces of Zambezia, Nampula, Niassa and in Cabo Delgado”.
At the end of last month, only less than 4 percent of Mozambicans had been vaccinated, despite a sharp increase in the delivery of vaccines since July and the launch of a comprehensive vaccination programme at the beginning of August, NKC African Economics notes.
