Chronicle Editor
Yoliswa Dube-Moyo, Matabeleland South Bureau Chief
VILLAGE health workers are proving to be silent heroes in the battle against Covid-19 as they complement the work being done by the mainstream health sector by fighting misinformation on Covid-19 in rural areas.
A significant number of communities in Gwanda District do not have radio signal due to poor telecommunications infrastructure hence the need for village health workers to share the correct information on Covid-19.
In Zimbabwe, village health workers take care of the most vulnerable patients by providing basic health services.
They are members of the communities they serve and have gone through basic healthcare training and often act as volunteers or receive a minimal stipend.
Village health workers have been receiving support from local public health organisations in carrying out their work across the country.
Community Working Group on Health (CWGH) executive director Mr Itai Rusike said working with village health workers had been one of the most innovative approaches to fighting Covid-19 misinformation in communities.
“The VHWs approach has been one of the innovative approaches to address the rise of misinformation and disinformation that is resulting in the vaccine hesitancy and scepticism thereby contributing to the low uptake of the Covid-19 vaccine rollout program in the rural areas,” said Mr Rusike.
He said informed community participation was needed in ensuring the success of the vaccination programme countrywide adding that village health workers were pivotal in the mobilisation of communities to support the programme.
“Informed community participation and ownership of the Covid-19 national vaccination programme is key in encouraging communities to embrace the vaccine and willingly come forward to be vaccinated if the country is to achieve the required herd immunity of vaccinating at least 60 percent of the population.”
Mr Rusike called for the support of village health workers whom he said were often under-resourced and worked in unsafe conditions.
He said in some villages, they worked without full personal protective equipment.
“Unfortunately the VHWs are often undersupplied with Personal Protective Equipment (PPE) and because of the corona fear, VHWs are extra worried about their own safety,” he said.
Some village health workers have to walk very long distances and cover wide catchment areas, especially in new settlements.
In an effort to reach herd immunity, health officials across the country have had to embark on door-to-door vaccination drives in order to access more people.
The country had aimed to reach herd immunity, which is 60 percent of the targeted population, by the end of last year but failed to reach the goal due to low uptake of the vaccines in some areas among other reasons.
Matabeleland South provincial medical director Dr Rudo Chikodzore said human resources have been a major challenge for the vaccination drives in the province.
“We’re challenged with human resources with quite a huge number of our staff having left. This has affected our vaccination campaigns generally,” said Dr Chikodzore.
She said the teams were working hard to reach their goals despite the limitations.
“We’ve tried to work with what we have. We’ve also tried to get the hard-to-reach areas covered while at the same time conducting door-to-door campaigns. It has been a struggle for us. Some of our trained and experienced staff who knew how to manage Covid-19 and had trained on how to do vaccinations have left. Where we had 10 staff, for example, we’re left with two,” said Dr Chikodzore.
The human resource challenges, she said, were limiting the reach of the vaccination campaign in the province.
@Yolisswa
Online Reporter