adminAccording to the Ministry of Health and Child Welfare weekly disease surveillance report, 10 of the deaths were of children below the age of five years. An additional 11 936 people were treated and discharged of the same condition in the same week, while 7 694 were children below the age of five years.
The deaths were recorded in Kwekwe, Buhera, Chimanimani, Mutare, Bulawayo and Harare. Manicaland Province has the highest cases of diarrhoea deaths and cases.
Disease prevention and control director in the Ministry of Health and Child Welfare Dr Portia Manangazira said the number of children dying from diarrhoeal diseases would only be reduced after rota virus vaccine is introduced.
She said in Zimbabwe, diarrhoeal diseases peak between April and August and that was known as winter diarrhoea.
She said latest statistics showed that children below the age of five years account for 64 percent of all recorded diarrhoeal cases.
Government, she said, hoped to introduce the rota virus vaccine beginning next year following the overhaul of the cold storage facilities.
Deputy Minister of Health and Child Welfare Dr Douglas Mombeshora said Treasury had finally released US$480 000 for the expansion of cold storage facilities at Parirenyatwa Group of Hospitals.
He said expansion of the cold storage facilities would facilitate introduction of two important vaccines — the rota virus and the human papilloma virus (HPV).
The rota virus vaccine is for prevention of diarrhoeal diseases in children under the age of five years and the HPV is for prevention of cervical cancer in girls and women.
Dr Mombeshora said work towards expansion of the cold storage facilities was expected to take not more than five months after which the vaccines would be introduced.
Meanwhile, a recent study titled the Global Enteric Multicentre Study (GEMS) conducted by the Maryland School of Medicine confirmed that rota virus was the leading cause of diarrhoea in children.
According to the study, one in five children under the age of two suffer from moderate to severe diarrhoea each year. This increases children’s risk of death almost eight-fold and leads to stunted growth over a two-month follow-up period.
“The GEMS findings help set priorities for investments that could greatly reduce the burden of childhood diarrhoeal diseases,” said Dr Thomas Brewer, deputy director of the Enteric and Diarrhoeal Diseases team at the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation.
Online Reporter