The Ministry of Health and Child Welfare disease control and immunisation programmes are being hampered by a section of the country’s elite class who have shunned the infants’ vaccination exercises for various reasons, a senior government official said yesterday.
Secretary for Health and Child Welfare Brigadier General Gerald Gwinji told the Parliamentary Portfolio Committee on Health and Child Welfare that the ministry faced challenges in immunising children due to lack of funding to procure vaccines, depleted human resources and resistance from the apostolic sects as well as a group of the elite who felt their children did not need immunisation.
Gwinji said the trend increased at a time when the under-five child mortality ratio was at 84 deaths per 1 000 children, a figure which he said was caused by preventable diseases.
“We have challenges in terms of accessing various populations, particularly the Vapostori sect who through their religious beliefs do not subscribe to vaccination and this population is difficult to penetrate and yet they are the population that contributes to the occurrence of measles,” Gwinji said.
“Of late we have a group of the elite who feel their children should not be given vaccinations and if you follow the trends in the First World some of the population is beginning to resist these vaccinations.”
Gwinji said it was difficult to seek legal recourse to force immunisation as the Public Health Act did not have strict penalties and urged Parliament to revise the Act to allow for prosecution of parents and guardians who offered resistance.
He told the David Parirenyatwa (Murehwa North MP)-led committee that: “We had been faltering in anti-retroviral therapy (ART) in terms of providing syrups for children due to funding issues and ended up resorting to breaking tablets for children slightly older so that we reserve syrups for younger children.
“We do not have specialists to initiate ART for children at most health centres.”
