adminSamuel Kadungure
THEY belong to faith-healing Christian sects that believe in the power of healing prayer rather than medicine.
This religious culture has been criticised for martyring children and limiting Government’s ability to protect children from preventable diseases and deaths.
When the measles rubella catch-up campaign, targeting five million children, was rolled out last week, child rights and health experts were cautious about how Government would deal with religious objectors who often insist on faith healing or pursue no treatment at all, and let nature takes its course.
Child rights activists queried whether parents have the right to follow their religion and withhold medical attention from their children, even if the children will probably die needlessly?
Constitutional guarantees of freedom of religion do not permit children to be harmed through religious practices, nor do they allow religion to be a valid legal defence when an individual harms or neglects a child.
Justice for children asserts that every child should have the opportunity to grow and develop free from preventable illness or injury. Children also have the right to appropriate medical evaluation when it is likely that a serious illness, injury, or other medical condition endangers their lives or threatens substantial harm or suffering.
Compromise, many thought, was millions of miles away.
However, on September 28, 2015, the Johanne Marange Apostolic Church took a landmark decision, which saw nearly 3 000 children at its St Noah Primary and Secondary schools immunised.
The sect’s attitudes have metamorphosed.
That is the price of citizenship.
“The church is evolving and moving along with time. We are not as ignorant as many people think. It is a decision that was made by the leadership after an engagement with the Ministry of Health and Child Care. It does not mean we have ceased believing in the effectiveness of prayer in healing <http://www.religioustolerance.org/medical6.htm>. The church has been advised to be caution before abandoning conventional medical treatment in favour of prayer. The discussion has been going on for years and what you are witnessing today, the paradigm shift, is a result of dialogue,” said a sect staffer at St Noah, who refused to be named citing church protocol.
Thousands of sect children vaccinated against measles and rubella were prayed for to be set free.
“After being immunised, if you are a sect child, you must go to the prophet and receive a deliverance prayer to set you free,” said the staffer.
The children queued for the cleansing prayer.
The positive response follows a massive persuasive drive led by the Ministry of Health and Child Care, civic organisations and traditional leaders targeted at sect dominated communities, amid reports that 70 percent of Marange children were left out of the national immunisation program last year.
The Marange area is dominated by members of the Johanne Marange Apostolic church who resisted immunisation because of their religious beliefs.
The Minister of Health and Child Care, Dr David Parirenyatwa, said change of attitudes by religious groups showed that at some point, in multicultural, pluralistic society, we must compromise to accommodate contrasting values of others.
He said that compromise is part of the glue that holds Zimbabwe together as a nation, adding that the tolerance exhibited by the sects was lubricating country’s health delivery system.
Christians, biblically, are instructed to be both salt and light to those around them.
“We have approached all the religious leaders, and most of them endorsed the measles rubella vaccination. These leaders are so powerful, they carry so much weight, and when they take a stance and utter a word to their followers, then it goes. We had to engage and understand them before they understand us. We all compromised, it is an ongoing dialogue,” said Dr Parirenyatwa.
“We have registered an increase in incidence of rubella in the country. About 1 024 cases were detected in 2014, and that puts pregnant mothers at risk,” said Dr Parirenyatwa.
Rubella is an acute, contagious viral infection which is generally mild in children, but has serious consequences in pregnant women causing foetal death or congenital defects known as congenital rubella syndrome (CRS) – which causes of blindness, deafness, congenital heart disease and mental retardation in new born babies.
The rubella virus is transmitted by airborne droplets when infected people sneeze or cough.
The goal of rubella vaccination is to minimise the number of susceptible women of child-bearing age as weak vaccination efforts can actually increase vulnerability to the disease.
“Let us watch out for rubella. This is very important for children. Let us all be responsible and prevent children deaths that are avoidable,” said Dr Parirenyatwa.
Though the war against religious objectors has been won, the same cannot be said about the elite objectors in urban areas.
“Let us not just condemn the religious people because the highly educated and sometimes top class businesspeople are a serious problem. They have no time to join the long queue, they prefer private clinics and hospitals and what we have encouraged in other countries during national campaigns like this is to distribute the vaccines to these private institutions so that when they go for consultations they are immunised. They fear to join long queues, but when they are not vaccinated, all of us are in danger. We need to find ways of reaching them,” said World Health Organisation representative, Dr David Okella.
Another medical expert, Dr Owen Mugurungi, echoed similar sentiments, saying religious objectors are much easier to deal with compared to their elite counterparts.
“These are the people who tell you point blank that NO, my child cannot be immunised. This is where the majority of the children are missed during national immunisation programmes. It is more dicing in urban areas,” said Dr Mugurungi, amid reports that thousands of children were not vaccinated in urban areas.
Professor Rose Kambarami, who is the country director of MCHIP and head of the Paediatric Association of Zimbabwe, said measles and rubella (German measles) were highly contagious, and one needs a strong immune system to resist the infections.
“The best way to eradicate measles and rubella is by ensuring that all children are vaccinated. It is infected children that spread the disease to pregnant mothers.
“The mother has to be immune, if she is not, she will get the virus and pass it on to the unborn baby. Vaccinating all children is the only way of protecting pregnant mothers. We need a lot of children to be vaccinated. Our appeal is that we should get all those children,” said Dr Kambarami.
Dr Kambarami said Zimbabwe has not been vaccinating against rubella over the past years despite a vaccine being available.
Most African countries do not include it into their national public health immunisation programmes and that means the virus, is therefore, circulating freely in many African regions.
“To mount a campaign like this you need evidence to show that you have a problem. We have a surveillance centre for rubella and other infectious disease at Harare Hospital which has shown that the disease is on the rise as a country we have a problem,” said Prof Kambarami, adding once vaccinated children grow without a problem.
“We have to reduce unnecessary children death and disabilities. Make sure that children do not die. When you immunise children they survive, when you give them vitamin A supplementation, from the age of six months, you will be saving them from dying diseases because their immune system will be strengthened,” said Prof Kambarami.
Vitamin A supplementation has potential to reduce the number of preventable child deaths and recognised as one of the most cost-effective interventions for improving child survival.
It is a prerequisite for achieving MDG 4, particularly in countries with high under-five mortality and or vitamin A deficiency rates.
An estimated four million children under age five are affected by xerophthalmia, a serious eye disorder that can be caused by moderate to severe deficiency and can lead to blindness.
Zimbabwe experienced the worst measles outbreak in 2009, which claimed the lives of over 630 children while more than 12 918 suspected cases were recorded. Many of the victims were denied medical treatment in favour of prayer, holy water, anointing with oils, and sometimes exorcisms.
Zimbabwe’s immunisation rates declined from around 80 percent in 1991 to 62 percent in 2008.
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