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Thupeyo Muleya Beitbridge Bureau

Government is now rolling out a massive vaccination programme in border towns to re-open economic activities which are mostly cross border-related, a senior health official has said.

The chief director in the Ministry of Health and Child Care Dr Maxwell Hove told stakeholders among them community leaders in Beitbridge that it was critical to reach herd immunity in border towns.

He said for Beitbridge Urban , they were targeting to vaccinate at least 26 000 adults from the age of 18 years to 80 years.

The chief director is visiting Matabeleland South with a team of national health experts to promote the mass vaccination initiative in border towns.

“We need to vaccinate the majority of adults in the border towns to attain herd immunity , protect them from the corona virus and to create an optimal environment to open up all economic activities here which are linked to crossborder, ” said Dr Hove.

He said the pandemic had hit hard on the economy and residents in port towns were the worst affected.

Dr Hove said after the inoculations of those in the urban part of the border towns, they will roll out the same initiative to accommodate those in rural areas who also have an interface with those migrants using informal borders.