Chronicle Editor
Thupeyo Muleya, Beitbridge Bureau
GOVERNMENT has intensified the Covid-19 education and awareness campaigns using the country’s 16 official languages to promote the mass vaccination programme in high-risk areas including border towns.
The chief director in the Ministry of Health and Child Care Dr Maxwell Hove said they had teams nationwide which were unpacking information for people around the vaccines.
He said more Information Education Communication (IEC) material containing Frequently Asked Questions (FAQs) and answers about the pandemic and Expanded Programme on Immunization (EPI) had been printed.
Dr Hove said information was being disseminated in all the country’s 16 official languages so that the majority of citizens are enlightened.
“We are now rolling mass vaccination in all hot spots including border town where we want to attain herd immunity and protect our communities,” he said.
Dr Hove said in Beitbridge they were targeting to vaccinate at least 26 000 people aged between 18 years and 80 years.
He said residents in the town were very vulnerable to new infections considering that most of them survive on cross-border linked activities.
“You will realise that we are disseminating a lot of information. We have pamphlets to address most of the misinformation filtering through social media,” said Dr Hove.
“We are also meeting various community leaders among them churches, councillors, businessmen, women’s groups and heads of Government departments.”
He said Zimbabwe had chosen traditional types of vaccines that were safe and have always been used in the past.
“They are safe. So far, they have proved to be very safe throughout the world in areas where they are being given and we hope that the information will get to all so that they get vaccinated for their own protection,” said Dr Hove. @tupeyo
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