By A Correspondent | Zimbabwe’s most senior government official responsible for vaccines has joined the country’s COVID Taskforce Head Oppah Muchinguri in throwing doubts on the Chinese Vaccine, Sinopharm.

The development is an announcement that that among the national leadership no one relies on the Chinese Sinopharm vaccine ‘because it has not undergone clinical trials to prove its efficacy with the South African strain of COVID-19.’

The opinion flies against what the Chinese media has published which states the opposite.

Speaking just after the arrival of the first 200,000 vaccines, the National Vaccine Program Head, Dr Robert Madyirandima spoke of the upcoming clinical trials, which will take over a week before the vaccines are rolled out.

He said, “As we inject people, we’ll be experimenting, looking for evidence, to see if the #Sinopharm vaccine works… Because when they made it they didn’t do any clinical tests on the SA variant, so at present there’s no one who trusts it.”

His statement conjoins that of the Defence Minister, Oppah Muchinguri who on the sidelines of the funeral of the late Manicaland Minister Ellen Gwaradzimba told ZimEye’s Simba Chikanza that she will never take the vaccine, saying she will only trust locally produced jabs. RECORDINGS BELOW (PACHEDU)