Scores of Immigration Officers from Immigration Headquarters in Blantyre today received the AstraZeneca Covid-19 vaccine.
This is coming as the Government of Malawi has rolled-out the Covid-19 vaccination exercise in all districts of the country targeting frontline officers in the first phase.
Being Officers who are highly exposed due to the nature of their job, many Immigration Officers from the Headquarters voluntarily left the comfort of their offices to get their first shots; amidst doubts of AstraZeneca vaccine efficacy and the subsequent suspension of the same in other countries.
According to Wellington Chiponde, Deputy Public Relations Officer, Immigration Headquarters said the Chief Immigration Officer was the first to receive the jab.
“Officers from Blantyre headquarters received the jab and the exercise will continue until all staffs receive the vaccine, and our Chief Immigration Officer was the first leading the exercise that is taking place at Chilomoni Health Center, a clinic under the administration of Blantyre District Health Office.
“It is no secret that scientists and researchers have developed the Covid-19 vaccines with unprecedented speed, a thing that has attracted an avalanche of skepticism on the effectiveness of all vaccines. But according to World Health Organization (WHO) the AstraZeneca vaccine is highly recommended as a much safer way of building one’s immunity and resilience against the Coronavirus that causes Covid-19,” said Chiponde.
The AstraZeneca vaccine has been developed by Oxford University in collaboration with AstraZeneca plc, a British-Swedish multinational pharmaceutical and biotechnology company with its headquarters in Cambridge, England.
