adminLocadia Mavhudzi Herald Correspondent
The HPV vaccination campaign has started smoothly in most parts of the Midlands Province with health teams visiting schools and health centres to administer the HPV Vaccine to girls in the 10 to 15 years age group.
Midlands Provincial Medical Director, Dr Simon Nyadundu said they faced minimal challenges.
“Our teams are on the ground in all the seven districts and I am actually in Kwekwe district now where we are monitoring the programme. Of course there are minimal challenges in terms of transport and logistics where there are few user friendly vehicles, which are able to transport vaccines safely to the recipients without them being exposed to sunlight. However we are managing with the limited resources,” he said.
Dr Nyadundu said he has been monitoring in urban districts, which are Gweru and Kwekwe while Tuesday and Wednesday the monitoring team would be travelling to Gokwe north and south.
“We are impressed by the response in urban areas and tomorrow we will be moving to rural districts covering Gokwe North and South.
Meanwhile, chief Gambiza of Chiwundura community hailed the intensified advocacy, programme communication and social mobilisation done before the programme commenced.
“We are happy that our girls are being vaccinated against cervical cancer. The message was spread across various media platforms including social media hence everyone is now aware about the benefits of having their girls vaccinated.”
He said previous vaccination campaigns did not receive positive responses because communities did not fully understand the reasons behind the programme.
The Ministry of Health and Child Care in collaboration with partners has provided much needed resources in the form of manpower, fuel, vehicles and other logistics for the smooth roll out of the programme.
Midlands province is targeting to vaccinate 120 000 girls. Over 1195 primary and secondary public and private schools in Midlands Province will be reached.
Online Reporter