LOCAL Public Health Expert and Epidemiologist, Dr Grant Murewanhema has hinted that Zimbabwe’s epidemic curve was at the verge of flattening even though clustered sections of infections were still reported at community level.
By Michael Gwarisa
An epidemic curve, also known as an epi curve or epidemiological curve, is a statistical chart used to visualize the onset and progression of a disease outbreak.
Presenting during an editors workshop that was organized by the National AIDS Council, Dr Grant said there was need to scale-up COVID-19 prevention interventions in a bid to avoid a resurgence of infections.
Currently our epi-curve has almost flattened with majority of incident cases being local cases. Majority of incident cases are clustered, especially in some schools, with otherwise sporadic transmissions.
“However, failing to control the clustered infections could precipitate widespread community transmission hence the need to isolate and quarantine their contracts in school rather than sending them home. There is need to effectively trace contacts for sporadic cases to quarantine or isolate them as well as accelerate vaccination of teachers and other key players in the education sector,” said Dr Grant.
Government has relaxed restrictive measures even though some sections of the economy such as bars and recreational facilities are yet to be opened. Meanwhile, the national COVID-19 vaccination has spread to al the country’s 10 provinces mindsets improved uptake of services even though a slower pace.
“Vaccination is the most effective public health intervention to prevent or reduce the number of new infections, reduce the severity among those infected, reduce the mortality from severe disease, reduce the morbidity associated with the disease, reduce the strain on healthcare resources and also allows most socioeconomic activities to normal. Realising maximum populations benefits from vaccination depends on vaccinating at least 67% of the population to attain herd immunity.”
Zimbabwe is currently administering the Sinopharm and Sinovac vaccines from China, and limited doses of Covaxin vaccines from India which inactivated viruses. The country aims to vaccinate at least 60% of the adult population for now, and as of 27/04/2021, we had vaccinated about 353,834 individuals.
