Story by Abigirl Tembo, Health Editor
ZIMBABWE’s success story in routine immunisation programmes has attracted global attention with GAVI, the Vaccine Alliance saying it is one of the best in Africa.
This came out when a team from the global alliance which promotes equity in immunisation met Vice President, General (Retired) Dr Constantino Chiwenga on the sidelines of the Patient Safety Summit in Switzerland this Thursday.
GAVI’s managing director in charge of more than 70 countries, Mr Thabani Maphosa, held a meeting with Vice President Chiwenga where they discussed the country’s immunisation programmes.
‘‘I had an opportunity to discuss with the Vice President the state of the health system in Zimbabwe and the immunisation programme coming out of Covid-19, the type of lessons that have been learnt and how we can come together to help the country to strengthen its health system.
“Zimbabwe has done very well on Covid-19, it is very clear that Covid-19 has been kept at bay in the country in the context of where the whole world had to fight the pandemic.
“Zimbabwe had minimal death cases, yes they were there but I think when you look at it relative to its neighbour South Africa for example, it did very well in containing the pandemic. I think there are other programmes in immunisation, Zimbabwe has always had a strong immunisation programme. But that programme has suffered in the recent past with the pandemic specifically because attention and resources had to be diverted to fight Covid-19 but overally it has been doing very well.’’
Gavi, the Vaccine Alliance helps vaccinate almost half the world’s children against deadly and debilitating infectious diseases like measles and polio.
It also played a crucial role in ensuring that low to medium income countries get access to COVID-19 vaccines at the height of the pandemic.
