Suburban
Diana Nherera Suburban Reporter
THE City of Harare has urged residents of the city to take advantage of the national polio supplementary immunization campaign which starts on Thursday this week to protect children in the 0-59 months age group against preventable diseases.
Harare epidemiologist Dr Michael Vere told Suburban that the vaccination campaign has been necessitated by the outbreak of polio that has been confirmed in two neighbouring countries Mozambique and Malawi.
“So because of the closeness of these countries to us, there’s that risk of cross-border transmission of infections.
“This is why as a nation we have taken that route of vaccinating our own because so far we have not confirmed any cases in Zimbabwe so we need to guard against it so vaccination is the goal standard for prevention of polio infections,” he said.
Dr Vere said the vaccination campaign which runs up to the October 30 is targeting to vaccinate 90 percent of this age group in Harare.
Vaccinations will take place at all the city’s clinics and mobile sites who will be moving around the capital’s public places.
“So we will be having stationary sites which are clinics and also mobile sites which are teams who will be moving around in the market places etc. and also vaccinating people in the suburbs or locations with people of that age group,” said Dr Vere.
