The Malawian government, in collaboration with the World Health Organization, has initiated a fresh COVID-19 vaccination drive on Monday across ten of the nation’s 29 districts. This move comes partially as a response to the new cases identified in several districts over the past three weeks.
Currently, Nsanje District in southern Malawi has the highest number of COVID-19 cases reported this year. According to George Mbotwa, the spokesperson for the district health office, the district has registered 17 new cases in the last three weeks, some of which involve health workers.
“Initially, we had two cases, but the number has now escalated to eight cases involving health workers,” Mbotwa said. “Some of these cases have now tested negative, while others are being monitored to ensure they have fully recuperated before they can resume work.”
As of Monday, Malawi has recorded a total of 89,202 confirmed COVID-19 cases, including 2,686 fatalities, since the onset of the pandemic in April 2020.
The Ministry of Health in Malawi believes that the new vaccination drive will enhance the COVID-19 vaccine uptake in the country where vaccination rates in some regions are as low as 40%.
The Ministry further stated that this WHO-funded campaign would help prevent vaccine wastage, as witnessed in 2020 when the government was forced to discard nearly 20,000 expired AstraZeneca doses due to vaccine hesitancy amid safety and efficacy concerns.
However, recent public health campaigns by the government emphasizing the importance of COVID-19 vaccinations have helped overcome this hesitancy.
Mary Chawinga, a mother of two from Machinjiri Township in Blantyre, shared that she has received the vaccine and is awaiting her booster dose.
“I am ready to take my children because prevention is better than cure, as they say,” Chawinga said. “You never know how this new wave will unfold considering the way it was in 2020. We experienced it in 2021, and now it’s 2024.”
Habeeba Nyasulu, another mother of two, stated she got her COVID-19 doses during the initial campaign and she encourages others to do the same. “I know that we are not safe until everyone is safe,” she said. “So, let others also receive the vaccine. I am aware that the vaccine doesn’t necessarily prevent infection, but it helps in reducing the severity of the illness if we catch the virus.”
Maziko Matemba, a community healthcare ambassador in Malawi, emphasized that the threat of COVID-19 remains prevalent in the country. “Malawi didn’t vaccinate a sufficient number of people against COVID-19 because our target population was about 11 million Malawians,” Matemba said. “But less than half of that number, about 2 or 3 million Malawians, were able to get vaccinated.”
Matemba explained that it’s crucial to have vaccines available in the right places and motivate more people to get vaccinated.
According to the Ministry of Health, the new vaccination campaign targets ten out of the country’s 29 health districts where new cases have been recently recorded. These districts include Machinga, Blantyre, Dowa, Mzimba, and Nsanje.
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