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Thupeyo Muleya

Beitbridge Bureau

Covid-19 education and awareness campaigns have been intensified across the country to promote the mass vaccination programme in high-risk areas, including border towns.

Chief director in the Ministry of Health and Child Care, Dr Maxwell Hove, said teams had been deployed nationwide to explain the vaccines and answer questions.

Some teams were static, while others were mobile and more information, education and communication material containing frequently asked questions and answers about the pandemic and the Expanded Programme on Immunisation have been printed.

Dr Hove said information was being disseminated in all the country’s 16 official languages so that everyone could understand.

“We are now rolling mass vaccination in all hot spots, including border towns where we want to attain a herd immunity and protect our communities,” he said.

In Beitbridge, they are targeting to vaccinate at least 26 000 adults aged between 18 years and 80 years.

Residents in the town are seen as vulnerable to new infections considering that most of them survive on cross-border linked activities.

Seven million people use the Beitbridge Border Post to cross into either Zimbabwe or South Africa each year.

“You will realise that we are disseminating a lot of information,” he said. “We have pamphlets to address most of the misinformation filtering through social media.

“We hope that people should be able to heed that and come and get vaccinated. We are also meeting with community leaders, among them churches, councillors, businessmen, women’s groups and heads of Government departments.”

Zimbabwe has chosen traditional types of vaccines that are safe and have always been used in the past.

“They are safe,” said Dr Hove. “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.”