This week schools in the southern African
country have become vaccination zones with children in school uniforms lining
up to get the injections.
Many parents say they support the
vaccination drive to prevent schools from becoming centers of infection,
although others remain skeptical.
“Let them get vaccinated, it will save us a
lot of trouble. Maybe it will stop the constant closures of schools … the
online lessons drain us each time the schools are closed,” said Helen Dube, a
parent walking her 12-year-old daughter to a school in the crowded Chitungwiza
town, about 30 kilometers (19 miles) southeast of the capital, Harare.
“Plus, if schools are safe then we are also
safe at home,” she said, referring to instances when schools have become
centers of virus infection.
Zimbabwe is gradually returning to its
normal school calendar after two years of intermittent and sometimes prolonged
closures due to waves of COVID-19 cases.
Adults are also being targeted in the
vaccination campaign which will run until mid-May, according to Vice President
Constantino Chiwenga, who is also the country’s health minister.
Zimababwe was one of the first African
countries to give shots of COVID-19 vaccines, achieving higher rates than much
of the continent.
About 23% of Zimbabwe’s 15 million people
have received two jabs, mostly of the Chinese Sinopharm and Sinovac vaccines,
far short of the government’s initial target of 60% by the end of 2021.
President Emmerson Mnangagwa’s government now says it is trying to reach a goal
of 70% of the eligible population by the end of July.
Just over 5,400 people in Zimbabwe have
died from COVID-19, according to official figures, although the toll is likely
much higher because of undiagnosed or reported cases, according to health
experts.
The government says it has enough vaccine
doses, including for booster jabs, but uptake has slowed in recent months as
the number of cases and fatalities have slowed. Just over 8 million doses have
been used out of more than 22 million in stock, according to government
figures.
After experiencing difficulties in getting
adequate supplies of vaccines, many African countries are now making concerted
efforts to get shots into arms.
Kenya, Congo, Ethiopia and Nigeria have
also launched mass vaccination campaigns.
While COVID-19 cases have declined across
the continent since the peak of the omicron-driven fourth wave in early January
2022, Africa’s vaccination coverage remains far behind the rest of the world.
About 201 million people or 15.6% of Africa’s population of 1.3 billion are
fully vaccinated compared with the global average of 57%, according to the World
Health Organization.
“While this progress is welcome, the pace
of vaccination across the continent needs to increase nine-fold if we are to
reach our target of vaccinating 70% of the population by June 2022,” Matshidiso
Moeti, WHO’s regional director for Africa, said this month.
WHO plans to support mass vaccinations in
Africa “in at least 10 priority countries to reach 100 million by the end of
April,” according to a WHO statement.
Together Africa’s 54 countries have
recorded more than 11.3 million cases, including more than 250,000 deaths,
according to the Africa Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. -AP
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