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Yoliswa Dube-Moyo, Matabeleland South Bureau Chief
OUTREACH teams in Matabeleland South province have started Covid-19 vaccination of teenagers aged 16 and 17 years following Government’s approval to inoculate this age group with the Sinovac Biotech (SVA.O) vaccine recently.

The country aims to achieve herd immunity by the end of next month.

The Ministry of Health and Child Care said in a statement that it had taken the decision after recommendations from specialist pediatricians and was still considering whether to vaccinate younger children.

Matabeleland South Provincial Medical Director Dr Rudo Chikodzore said outreach teams were focusing on schools as the vaccination programme for pupils entered the second week in the province.

“This is the second week since we’ve been vaccinating the 16 and 17-year-olds in Matabeleland South province mainly focusing on the schools since most of them are in school. The district teams have been going around schools vaccinating pupils.

“We started off slow and not all schools were covered. We don’t have many outreach teams; the ones we have are moving from school to school and those who are in school are being offered the vaccine,” said Dr Chikodzore.

She said she could not immediately provide figures on the uptake of the vaccine.

“I can’t comment on uptake right now because our ability to be in various schools at the same time is limited.

However, it’s gradually going up. Initially, a few districts had started, but by the end of last week, all the districts were now going around schools”.

“There are quite a number of schools in our province so it’s a mammoth task for our teams. The majority of the districts have two teams while others have three to four teams so there are several limitations to our ability to be in several schools at the same time, but I’m sure we’ll gradually see the uptake going up.

“Right now, we have a few outreach teams that are also covering the general public. What I can say for now is that we’ve started and the numbers are gradually increasing,” said Dr Chikodzore.

She said tallies on how many teenagers had so far been inoculated in the province were yet to be done.

“We’ll see in the coming weeks if there’s something that can be done at national level to try and get a clearer picture.

For now, the inoculations were just being included in the usual statistics,” she said.

A growing number of countries have approved or are considering approving Covid-19 vaccinations for children and adolescents.

Neighbouring South Africa is already administering shots to those aged 12 and above as it looks to ramp up the level of Covid-19 protection.

The Ministry of Health and Child Care said the Sinovac shot would be the only vaccine eligible for use on teenagers.

The country has predominantly used Sinovac and Sinopharm in its vaccination campaign.

The ministry said Zimbabwe was determined to reach herd immunity by the end of the year which is 60 percent of the targeted population and 38 percent of the targeted population had been vaccinated by the end of last month. — @Yolisswa