Angry crowd roughs up health workers in vaccines’ uproar

By BUUMBA CHIMBULU SOME health workers were yesterday roughed up at Lusaka’s Woodlands A Primary School after being accused of corruption when administering the second dose of the Covid-19 vaccine. This happened in the midst of some people panicking to get their second dose of the Covid-19 AstraZeneca vaccine which is in short supply. A …

Angry crowd roughs up health workers in vaccines’ uproar
By BUUMBA CHIMBULU SOME health workers were yesterday roughed up at Lusaka’s Woodlands A Primary School after being accused of corruption when administering the second dose of the Covid-19 vaccine. This happened in the midst of some people panicking to get their second dose of the Covid-19 AstraZeneca vaccine which is in short supply. A check at the vaccination centre found that by 13:30 hours, only about 100 people had been vaccinated from over 500 registered on the list. Some people who had gone to the centre as early as 03:00 hours had not been vaccinated by 14:00 hours. This mounted pressure after seeing some people who reached there after them being vaccinated. People at the centre were angry at the health workers and started harassing them. The health workers with help from police officers managed to calm the angry crowd. Those spoken to at the centre complained that some people were skipping the queues. “You will not treat us like fools, we have been here since 04:00 hours and we have not yet vaccinated and yet we are seeing people going inside and being vaccinated. “You (health workers) are getting paid to do this but we are doing it voluntarily. We have left businesses and decided to come here, you will not treat us like fools,” one of the angry citizens told the health workers. Another angry citizen complained that the process was very slow and frustrating. “Can you imagine I have been here since 07:00 hours and I am on number 230?…so far they are have just called out about 100 and something to go inside,” he complained.