BY HARRIET CHIKANDIWA
Government says it is revising its policy on COVID-19 vaccination to include children below 18 18 years after realising that they too were at risk of contracting the disease.
Children under 18 as well as pregnant and lactating mothers had been excluded from the ongoing national vaccination programme.
But of late, tertiary institutions have been ordering all pupils to produce vaccination cards to be admitted for end of semester examinations. Some of the students are under the age of 18.
Justice minister Ziyambi Ziyambi told Senate on Thursday that government was remodelling its vaccination policy to include children.
“It is also very correct to say that initially we had excluded children from the vaccination programme because we were under the belief that they are not affected. However, recently we have noticed that children are also affected and we have children that are dying because of COVID-19. As the government, we are also now revising that policy position on vaccination in terms of children.”
Ziyambi said government was also looking for alternative teaching methods so that learners can return to conventional learning.
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