Spotlight on COVID-19 in Zambia
Immunify.Life preparing to launch COVID-19 tracker and certification solution in Zambia
Zambia is a land-locked country at the crossroads of Central, Southern, and East Africa. It has a population of 16.2million people. Life expectancy is just 59 years for males and 65 years for females compared with US life expectancy of 77 years for men and 81 years for women.
Malaria and tuberculosis are major health problems. HIV/AIDS epidemic has further increased the incidence of tuberculosis. Zambia has one of the highest rates of HIV infection in Africa.
Now the COVID-19 pandemic presents a new health challenge for Zambia to manage.
Zambia launched its COVID-19 vaccination program on 14 April 2021 at the University Teaching Hospital in Lusaka.
Zambia received the first consignment of 228,000 doses of the vaccine from the COVAX facility, a global Initiative representing a partnership between the World Health Organization (WHO), Global Alliance for Vaccines and Immunization (GAVI), United Nation’s Children Fund (UNICEF), and the Coalition for Epidemic Preparedness Innovations (CEPI) working on the equitable distribution of COVID-19 vaccines.
The voluntary COVID-19 vaccination exercise in Zambia is targeting a total of 8.4 million people above the age of 18 years. The National COVID -19 Vaccine Deployment Plan has prioritized frontline health workers who are essential in sustaining the COVID-19 response, those most essential in maintaining core societal functions (teachers, immigration, police, religious and traditional leaders), people at greatest risk of severe COVID-19 disease (those with other underlying diseases and those aged above 65 years) and the population in congregate settings.
It is into this setting Immunify.Life will launch its COVID-19 platform at three government clinics, Kamwala, Railway, and Chawama Hospital clinics in late March, 2022. Immunify.Life and local NGO World Foundation are working together with clinicians at these hospitals on Ethics and Regulatory approval for use of the Immunify COVID19 platform from the Ministry of Health.
Preparations relating to the provision of laptops and tablets to record COVID19 vaccinations and to provide certification initially using QR codes and ultimately NFT certificates is ongoing. Training of the clinical team on the platform will commence once Ethics and Regulatory approval has been obtained.
COVID-19 had devastating health, social and economic consequences and therefore all efforts are needed to control it. As of 18 January 2022, 685 new cases of COVID19 had been reported with 296,817 confirmed cases with 3,866 confirmed deaths.
About Immunify.Life
Immunify.Life is a transformative and self-sustaining healthcare ecosystem secured by blockchain with the mission to transform the landscape of health management and data utilization. The project leverages the power of Big Health Data and Artificial Intelligence to ensure seamless movement of de-identified patient healthcare data.
Immunify.Life has established a strong presence in Africa with a team that has over 60 years of combined experience in the relevant industries. It is a world-first holistic and self-sustaining ecosystem to solve global health management crises and data collection challenges.
