Govt approves anti-parasitic COVID-19 drug
BY HARRIET CHIKANDIWA/RICHARD MUPONDE
GOVERNMENT has approved mass importation of the veterinary anti-parasitic drug, Ivermectin, as it battles the second wave of COVID-19 infections which have rattled President Emmerson Mnangagwa’s administration after killing five government ministers.
Robert Mudyiradima, the acting Health secretary wrote to the Medicines Control Authority of Zimbabwe (MCAZ) acting director-general Robert Rukwata directing that the drug be approved for use in the treatment of COVID-19 and that it could not “deny them (COVID-19 sufferers) effective treatment
regimes”.
“It is in this regard that authority is granted for you to proceed under section 75 of the Medicines and Allied Substances Control Act to allow importation and use of these medicines under the supervision and guidance you outlined,” Mudyiradima wrote on January 26.
Ivermectin lobby groups have welcomed the regulator’s decision to allow compassionate controlled access to the drug as a step in the right direction but have raised concern that it does not go far enough to make the drug easily accessible2020. (Photo by Luis ROBAYO / AFP)
HARARE, Zimbabwe – Zimbabwe has approved the use and import of the anti-parasite drug Ivermectin to treat COVID-19 patients.
“In these difficult times of COVID-19 treatment, we have to be careful to protect patients as well as not to deny them effective treatment regimes,” said a statement by the Health Ministry addressed to the Medicines Control Authority of Zimbabwe (MCAZ).
COVID-19 vaccine only for the chefs
BY HARRIET CHIKANDIWA/RICHARD MUPONDE/MIRRIAM MANGWAYA
GOVERNMENT yesterday revealed that it was failing to import enough vaccines for citizens, and would prioritise Cabinet ministers and senior government officials, Members of Parliament (MPs), the security sector and frontline health workers.
This is despite that a majority of people that have succumbed to COVID-19 are ordinary citizens after the country recorded 1 075 deaths as of last night.
Zimbabwe has witnessed a steep rise in the number of infections of the coronavirus, now having recorded more than 31 000 cumulative infections.
Ministers Sibusiso Busi Moyo (Foreign Affairs and International Trade), Joel Biggie Matiza (Transport and Infrastructual Development), Perrance Shiri (Lands
COVID-19 vaccine only for the chefs
BY HARRIET CHIKANDIWA/RICHARD MUPONDE/MIRRIAM MANGWAYA
GOVERNMENT yesterday revealed that it was failing to import enough vaccines for citizens, and would prioritise Cabinet ministers and senior government officials, Members of Parliament (MPs), the security sector and frontline health workers.
This is despite that a majority of people that have succumbed to COVID-19 are ordinary citizens after the country recorded 1 075 deaths as of last night.
Zimbabwe has witnessed a steep rise in the number of infections of the coronavirus, now having recorded more than 31 000 cumulative infections.
Ministers Sibusiso Busi Moyo (Foreign Affairs and International Trade), Joel Biggie Matiza (Transport and Infrastructual Development), Perrance Shiri (Lands