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Andile Tshuma, Chronicle Reporter
THE Ministry of Health and Child Care has reached over one million people in its second dose of cholera vaccination.
A first cholera vaccine was administered last year where the ministry vaccinated about 900 000 people.
Government successfully concluded the cholera vaccination programme which targeted the disease outbreak hotspots in the country.
This time around 1,12 million were vaccinated.
Speaking in a telephone interview yesterday, the Director of Epidemiology and Disease Control in the Ministry of Health and Child Care, Dr Portia Manangazira, said 90 percent of the target population was vaccinated with over 100 000 more people than during the first vaccination programme last year. The vaccination programme primarily targeted communities in Harare and Chitungwiza.
She said the most efficient campaign was among the 5-14 year age group.
“We managed to reach 1,1 million people this time and we had about 122 000 new people getting vaccinated, compared to the numbers we had last year, that was just slightly below a million, at about 980 000. Public response was very good and we commend our teams and members of the public for good co-operation that gave us such results,” said Dr Manangazira.
She said the ministry had managed to penetrate some religious sects which were previously difficult to convince to undergo vaccination, especially some sectors of the apostolic faith.“We had very good response from some members of the apostolic sects which have been difficult to penetrate and include in any health campaigns. We managed to establish good relations with the religious leaders who then made it easy for our teams to interact with their members. We commend them for choosing to co-operate with health officials as this makes our efforts of keeping the water borne diseases at bay,” said Dr Manangazira.
She said there was a need for urban councils to do their part in ensuring that residents had access to clean water and sanitation facilities, to avoid open defaecation and other things that contributed to water borne diseases outbreak. — @andile_tshuma
Online Reporter