By Judith Sibanda
The Ministry of Health and Child Care says it is targeting to vaccinate 9 568 children between the ages of 12 to 15 years in Hwange district as the country seeks to achieve herd immunity.
The district, like the rest of the country, began the vaccination rollout on Monday with an aim to inoculate both school going and stay at home children between the ages of 12 and 15, and so far, according to the District Medical Officer Fungai Musinami, the process has been going on so well.
“We have just begun and our target numbers are in the schools, but we are also giving the vaccines to those in the communities who want to,” Musinami said.
“For now, I have not compiled the overall statistics, but what we are happy for as the health officials is that the majority of schools that we have visited, our numbers are exceedingly pleasing although we have a few that have not taken up the vaccines of various reasons, but mainly on the parent not consenting.”
Schools such as Hwange High School is targeted to vaccinate 366 pupils while Mosi-Oa-Tunya in Victoria Falls and other rural schools in the district have a similar target.
In primary schools, the numbers range between 60 and below.
Musinami said parents had a right to either consent or decline the vaccination on their children.
“They cannot be forced as their reasons vary. We will not force such children to get the vaccine,” she said.
The rollout is expected to end on April 3.
Hwange district has over 85 percent of its target adult population vaccinated.
