Vice President and Minister of Health and Child Care, Dr C.G.D.N. Chiwenga has launched the Integrated Typhoid Conjugative Vaccination (TCV) Campaign which is going to run from 24 May to 4 June 2021, in a bid to improve the quality of life of Zimbabwean citizens particularly children by protecting them from disease outbreaks like Typhoid using vaccines.

The vaccination campaign will cater for over 6 million children from the age of 9 months to 15 years as this will reduce the number of children susceptible to Typhoid in the country thus moving forward Government’s agenda to eliminate Typhoid and other outbreak prone diseases like cholera.

Speaking at the event Dr Chiwenga said that the vaccination programme was in line of Government plans that in the recent past the country had continued to be affected by Typhoid outbreaks with cities like Harare, Bulawayo and Gweru being the epicentres due to chronic poor Water Sanitation and Hygiene (WASH) conditions caused by shortages of water.

“This has largely been due to chronic poor Water Sanitation and Hygiene (WASH) conditions which have been exacerbated by overcrowding and seasonal water shortages in some of these affected places.

“Against this background, the introduction of Typhoid vaccines becomes a critical public health measure to complement Government’s current focus on rehabilitating obsolete WASH infrastructure in our main urban centres,” said Dr Chiwenga.

The VP acknowledged the introduction of the vaccine by the Ministry of Health during this COVID-19 pandemic era as it is yet another complementary tool for epidemic control apart from access to water, adequate sanitation and hygiene which continue to be the spine of typhoid prevention and control in a long-term course.

“Like I mentioned Typhoid Conjugate Vaccine will not be the ultimate solution to the country’s Typhoid burden. That is the reason why as part of Typhoid vaccination campaign there will be concurrent complementary WASH investments and activities to support health care workers and our communities in maintaining recommended food, environmental and personal hygiene standards even after introduction of the vaccine,” said the VP.

Stakeholders were also urged to do their best to in order to make this campaign a success, reaching out to all eligible children through quality vaccinations thus complementing the idea that Zimbabwe is also one of the first countries in the African region to take the bold step of introducing this vaccine into routine immunisation only coming second to Liberia which introduced the vaccine this April.

The Ministry of Primary and Secondary Education as well as Local Government and Public Works were acknowledged for working closely with the Ministry of Health and Child Care in planning this campaign.

Dr Chiwenga took the opportunity to urge all people to continue observing COVID-19 regulations as this pandemic is far from over. As of 20 May 2021, the country had 38 635 confirmed cases, including 36 427 recoveries and 1585 deaths and to date, a total of 615 296 people have been vaccinated against COVID-19.