The past two years has seen Zimbabwe giving greater focus
on the fight against the pandemic, a situation which some felt would hinder the
country’s quest to revamp the health services to match best international
practices.
VP Chiwenga, however, said Zimbabwe was not negating its
vision of transforming the health services and outlined some major strides by Zimbabwe.
“We maintained above 86 percent childhood coverage in 2020
and currently we are carrying out integrated and targeted catch up campaigns
for under-performing districts.
Zimbabwe is currently on a milestone rollout of the Typhoid
Conjugate Vaccine (TCV) and the programme has already earned huge praise from
United Nations agencies.
According to the World Health Organisation (WHO), Zimbabwe
is only the third country in the world to make TCV part of its routine
immunisation programme.
“The HIV programme has achieved — the 90-90-90 targets. The
delivery of TB, malaria and other essential health services during the Covid-19
response has also been maintained,” said VP Chiwenga.
Zimbabwe has so far defied the odds with a thorough and
effective response to the Covid-19 pandemic, faring exceptionally well in
comparison to other developing countries.
The country’s ability to respond to the pandemic has
received international rave reviews with the World Health Organisation and
China all commending the Government’s efforts.
“Our response has been a combination of health promotion
and prevention measures based on raising awareness and community mobilisation.
The whole of Government and society’s approach helped the country to reduce
transmission and Covid-19 associated morbidities and mortalities,” said VP
Chiwenga.
He said Government was partnering with local universities
and the private sector on innovations and strengthening of local production of
personal protective equipment (PPEs), medicines and medical equipment.
“The Government has put in place frameworks that are
guiding these engagements. “The Government is encouraging donors and
development partners to strengthen local production capacities for
sustainability,” he said.
“We have managed to incorporate gender-based violence and
children violence into the Nurses Training School curriculum so that our staff
are able to manage these cases as they present them to our institutions.
“Zimbabwe appreciates WHO and the key leadership role it
plays in the fight against the Covid-19 pandemic. We are strongly committed as
a nation, to ensuring equitable access to vaccines to all residents of
Zimbabwe,” said VP Chiwenga.
Acting Mashonaland Central provincial medical director Dr
Rudo Mari-Masanganise confirmed that her province continued offering other
healthcare services despite the Covid-19 situation. This was also corroborated
by several district medical officers in separate interviews.
“Covid-19 was a new virus and most people were talking
about it, but at no point did we stop offering other services.
“We actually improved our services in various aspects and
there was a lot of infrastructure development to boost the health sector,” said
Dr Precious Madziwa of Mazowe. Herald
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