Global Lead Coordinator for COVID-19 Vaccination Delivery in Tanzania

Mr. Ted Chaiban, the Global Lead Coordinator for COVID-19 Vaccine Delivery Partnership (CoVDP), is in Tanzania for an official four-day visit. A key part of his visit took place yesterday where he met with Vice President of the United Republic of Tanzania, H.E.  Philip Isdor Mpango to discuss strategies to accelerate COVID-19 vaccination uptake in Tanzania and meet its vaccination coverage goals.

Mr. Chaiban has also been meeting with other high-level Government officials, development partners, communities, religious leaders and other key stakeholders during his visit.

“I congratulate the Government for their efforts in promoting vaccination against COVID-19. I am here to take stock of where Tanzania is in meeting its vaccination coverage objectives and identify a way forward to address any bottlenecks and scale-up the vaccination programme,” said Mr. Chaiban. He was speaking alongside the Minister of Health, Hon. Ummy Mwalimu following a joint meeting between the two of them, the Minister of Finance and Planning, and the Minister of State in the President’s Office (Regional Administration and Local Governance).

Mr. Chaiban stressed that the pandemic is far from over and that the risk of new variants, especially in under-vaccinated populations, remains high. “COVID-19 is still with us and we need to ensure that we protect those most at risk including the elderly, people with underlying conditions, frontline health workers and those working in sectors such as tourism and hospitality. The vaccine is our best protection against COVID-19. No one is safe until we are all safe. As they say in Kiswahili: ‘Ni ujanja kuchanja’!

Mr. Chaiban was appointed as CoVDP Global Lead Coordinator, at the level of Assistant Secretary-General, in February 2022 by the United Nations Secretary-General António Guterres.

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Note to editors:

COVID-19 Vaccination Update

As of early July 2022, almost 12 billion doses of COVID-19 vaccines had been administered globally. According to the WHO, 61 per cent of the world population have been fully vaccinated butonly 13 per cent in low-income countries. The WHO Africa and Eastern Mediterranean regions account for the largest proportion of unvaccinated for the total population. In Tanzania, the COVID-19 vaccination programme started on 28 July 2021. About 10 million Tanzanians have received at least one dose and 8,553,930 (13.96%) have been fully vaccinated  to date.

About Ted Chaiban

Ted Chaiban has a long and illustrious career with UNICEF. He has been Regional Director for the Middle East and North Africa since October 2019. Prior to this role, he was UNICEF Director of Programmes (2014-2019), Director of Emergency Programmes (2012-2014), UNICEF Representative in Ethiopia (2009-2012) in Sudan (2005-2009) Sri Lanka (2002-2005). Read his full bio here. 

About COVID-19 Vaccine Delivery Partnership (CoVDP)

The COVID-19 Vaccine Delivery Partnership (CoVDP) is an inter-agency initiative launched by UNICEF, WHO and Gavi in January 2022 to support the 92 AMC countries in accelerating vaccine delivery with a particular focus on the 34 countries, including Tanzania, that were at or below 10 per cent in January 2022.