Kimberly Kusauka
The target by government to achieve 60 percent herd immunity by December 2021 after close to seven months of Covid-19 vaccination, remains a pipe dream as the nation still lags behind with more than five million out of the 10 million target yet to be vaccinated.
Government is still working on reaching herd immunity, but this time around they did not give a deadline which has been seen by professionals as a way of accepting that they had set unrealistic targets.
Failure to vaccinate 60 percent of the total Zimbabwean population has been blamed on reluctance by both citizens who were no longer visiting vaccination centres as well as government that was no longer strictly enforcing Covid-19 regulations as well as encouraging people to get vaccinated.
During the festive season, a lot of people were seen in public places without wearing facemasks while not maintaining social distancing even though the new Omicron variant was spreading wildly.
Masvingo Provincial Medical Director (PMD) Doctor (Dr) Amadeus Shamhu said the Ministry of Health and Child Care is still on track to make sure that they reach herd immunity.
“We still continue encouraging people to visit their nearest vaccination centres to receive their jabs. We are doing outreaches where our staff visit the outskirts to reach out to a lot of unvaccinated population.
“We are now using a multi-factory approach, with enough staff as well as vaccines in the country. However, the main challenge we are having now is, since we are in rainy season, a lot of people depend on farming so they are spending most of their time in the fields,” said Dr Shamhu.
Masvingo Provincial Covid-19 Taskforce spokesperson Rogers Irimayi said they still carry out awareness campaigns, as well as circulating messages in the media to make sure that people get vaccinated against Covid-19.
“As a taskforce, we continue encouraging people to get vaccinated. The target of vaccinating 10 million people still stands as the country moves to achieve herd immunity. Programmes to encourage vaccination include awareness through media and messaging via Information Education Communication (IEC),” said Irimayi.
He said they are getting assistance from government as well as influential people in communities to spread awareness.
“Government partners and resident organisations are playing a pivotal role in spreading information on the pandemic. Important people in leadership positions such as traditional, church leaders as well politicians are assisting in Covid-19 awareness campaigns,” he said.
Covid-19 National Coordinator Dr Agness Mahomva in a recent publication said government has been updating people on the vaccination progress all along.
“We are constantly informing the public every week as we do with ministerial Cabinet media briefings. We do not wait to announce as if we are boarding a plane to Europe or wherever. We continue to give briefings to government, which is a proper way of informing the public.
“We have informed the public on challenges faced and strategies we are going to use to consolidate them. The update is continuously being done on a weekly basis,” said Dr Mahomva.
Government has so far said nothing to justify the failure to reach herd immunity by December 2021 and was supposed to be the vaccinating 10million out of the 15 million population estimate.
As at January 19 2022, a total number of 4 222 834 people have been vaccinated against Covid-19 in Zimbabwe, as the herd immunity stands at 42 percent.