US news agency wrong about Zimbabwe vaccination programme

United States news agency, Associated Press, got its facts wrong when it tweeted on Friday that Canada had a high vaccination rate while Zimbabwe had the lowest, Zimbabwe fact-checking organisation, Zimfact, pointed out.

AP ran a story in which it compared the vaccination programmes of Zimbabwe and Canada whose gross domestic product per capita was US$46 194.73 while that of Zimbabwe was US$1 463.99.

According to the New York Times vaccine tracker which lists countries with populations of at least 100 000, Zimbabwe is doing quite well in Africa and has the highest vaccination rate in Southern Africa.

Only four African countries are better than Zimbabwe and these are Mauritius, Morocco, Tunisia, Sao Tome and Principe.

Seychelles has the highest vaccination rate in Africa and 70% of the population has been fully vaccinated but it has only 98 000 people.

Zimbabwe has a higher vaccination rate than its regional economic power houses, Botswana and South Africa. By last week 14% of the population had been vaccinated, that is, they had received at least one dose. Botswana was at 13% and South Africa 11%.

Zimbabwe is better than more than 60 other countries listed on the New York Times tracker.

The NY Times tracker is, however, behind as it has 2 071 101 doses when by yesterday Zimbabwe had dispensed 2 116 664.

Ironically, AP has its own fact check.

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