PREPARATIONS for an intensified measles and polio vaccination campaign are well on course as the Ministry of Health and Child Care commenced the training of trainers in Masvingo on Monday.
This comes on the heels of the declaration of a measles outbreak in Mutasa district.
The Health Ministry is conducting a Intergrated meeting on Polio Campaign & EPI Training of Trainers workshop on Supplementary Immunization Activities with support from UNICEF ZIMBABWE and WHO Zimbabwe. The participants were drawn from the country’s 10 provinces.
“There are planned measles and polio campaigns to increase coverage since we are at risk, so we ensure that all our children in our communities and churches are vaccinated,”noted the Expanded Program on Immunisation (EPI) Manager in the Health and Child Care Ministry Ms C Chigodo during the Interfaith Religious Leaders engagement workshop held last week.
The World Health Organization last month noted that authorities in Mozambique declared an outbreak of wild poliovirus type 1 after confirming that a child in the country’s northeastern Tete province has contracted the disease. It becomes the second case of wild poliovirus confirmed in southern Africa this year, following a case in Malawi in mid-February.
In a statement, Dr. Matshidiso Moeti, WHO regional director for Africa, called the outbreak of poliovirus in Mozambique “greatly concerning.”
She added that efforts were underway to help strengthen disease surveillance in Malawi, Mozambique, Tanzania, Zambia and Zimbabwe, with plans to reach 23 million children ages five and below with the polio vaccine in the coming weeks.
Dr. Norman Matara, head of the Zimbabwe Association for Doctors for Human Rights, reportedly said the outbreaks of diseases may have resulted from the lockdowns that countries around the world instituted while fighting COVID-19.
“You know with the pandemic, the lockdowns and clinics shutting down, there is a probability some infants and children might have missed their immunizations schedule and thus we now have these emergency outbreaks; measles in Zimbabwe and polio in Mozambique,” he said. “So, we really urge the government that as they fight COVID-19, we should intensify immunization of children especially in those neglected areas so that every child gets immunized. We also urge the government to implement strong surveillance systems.”
