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Fungai Lupande Mashonaland Central Bureau

Religious groups with a rigid stance against vaccinating their children are now warming up to the novel Oral Polio Vaccination (nOPV) as Mashonaland Central achieves population immunity in its first round of the vaccination programme.

Out of the targeted 411 967 children below 10 years, 433 389 were vaccinated.

The Ministry of Health and Child Care in the province is aiming for higher coverage and is now on an intense campaign towards the second round of vaccination from March 19-22.

Speaking at a sensitisation meeting, the Provincial Medical Director Dr Clemence Tshuma urged parents, guardians or community members to report children who become suddenly paralysed.

He said it could be polio and immediate medical attention is needed for further investigations.

“We want to achieve total eradication of polio. We surpassed our vaccination target and achieved 105 percent. In the second round we want to vaccinate more children because children who exist are more than what we targeted in the first round,” he said.

“In the first round, we encountered challenges including learners being turned away during the vaccination days. The Provincial Education Director has assured that no pupil will be turned away during vaccination days.”

He urged stakeholders whose faith does not allow vaccination to step aside from the vaccination campaign and let people decide for themselves.

Speaking at the same meeting, the provincial nursing officer Mrs Anna Chinyemba said although there are still pockets of religious groups who are against vaccination, a huge number is nicodemously coming forward.

“In some communities, these people are asking their relatives to take their children for immunisation. This is a positive development for us because we want to reach head immunity,” she said.

“We respect confidentiality and we are making progress. Usually, the mothers are willing to vaccinate their children but the fathers are adamant. We will continue to take the opportunity to reach out to more people.”

The provincial expanded programme on immunisation officer Ms Scholastica Muparutsa said four districts in the province border with Zambia and Mozambique.

This places the communities at high risk of the disease and the first round of vaccination targeted these areas to curb the spread of the disease.

“We also created community awareness and involved the community in micro planning. Our special group is children under 5 years and we managed to vaccinate 211 949,” she said.

“During vaccination, we used house to house, school visits, shopping malls and clinics. We reached 95 percent coverage in all districts. However, a few health facilities did not do well. In the Masoka area, wild animals were amok and we had to involve game rangers.”