Typhoid claims nine lives

TYPHOID has claimed nine lives with 4 860 suspected cases having been reported since the beginning of the year, the Ministry of Health and Child Care has said.

The Ministry, which has initiated the country’s first typhoid vaccination programme, is targeting 325 000 people in nine selected high-density and typhoidburdened suburbs in Harare.

As of last week, more than 52 000 people between the ages of six months and 48 years had undergone typhoid vaccination.

According to statistics released by the Ministry of Health and Child Care, 48 new suspected cases were reported during the week ending 17 March 2019.

“Thirty-two cases were reported from South West district, 14 from Southern district, one from Parirenyatwa Group of Hospitals, all in Harare Province and one at Mpilo Central Hospital.

This brings the total number of typhoid cases so far this year to 4 860 suspected cases, 165 confirmed cases and nine (9) deaths,” read the statistics.

Typhoid last year claimed over 50 lives in Harare and Gweru prompting Government to allocate $38,1 million in the 2019 budget part of which will go towards an Environment Fund to assist in fighting cholera and typhoid outbreaks as well as contain water pollution and solid waste management.

In his 2019 National Budget Statement, Finance and Economic Development Minister Professor Mthuli Ncube said the fund would assist local authorities and communities fight such outbreaks.

Government last year said it would introduce mandatory child vaccination against typhoid beginning this year.

It said Typhoid Conjugate Vaccination (TCV) will be administered to children under the age of two years.

Director of Epidemiology and Disease Control in the Health and Child Care Ministry, Dr Portia Manangazira, said the vaccination was part of a strategy to eradicate typhoid and cholera by 2030.

Dr Manangazira said TCV would form part of the Health Ministry’s routine immunisation programme, and exact dates for immunisation would be made public. — @AuxiliaK.