By Sukuoluhle Ndlovu
Masvingo – 78.7% of children in the province have been vaccinated against the typhoid fever.
The vaccination program rolled out on the 24th of May this year with hopes to complete it by the 12th of June but has been stretched till the end of this month.
In an interview with Bustop TV, the Provincial Nursing Officer, Cresencia Maphosa said the vaccination process has been a success with 78.7 % children vaccinated three weeks after it rolled out.
Typhoid outbreaks in the country have occurred in the country for more than a decade, and drug resistance is making it harder to treat but the milestone vaccination campaign offers hope for progress.
According to Maphosa, Bikita had the highest percentage and Mwenezi recorded the lowest number of children vaccinated in the province.
“Bikita has recorded 95.7%, Chiredzi 72.1%, Masvingo 81%, Gutu 70.8%, Mwenezi 68.1%, Chivi 78.6% and Zaka 89.9%.”
She said that the turn up for the vaccination is okay basing on the time the roll out started.
“We started vaccination at a time when there was still campaign on Covid -19 vaccination and this confused the people as they thought the vaccination campaign was for the Covid -19 vaccination. The information that was being shared on social media also led to the confusion of the people, so we had to work on making the campaign a success as fewer kids were turning up but through the campaign we had parents turned up with their kids,” she said.
Maphosa added that they used the 2021 population meaning that they were short changed since the campaign started in May 2021.
Since the beginning of the typhoid vaccination program, no complaints or severe side effects cases have been recorded.
The Senior Program Officer for PATH, Lassane Kabore said, “vaccine-preventable childhood diseases, such as typhoid did not disappear during the pandemic.
“Unimmunized children remain vulnerable to this illness making routine immunization services all the more urgent”.
