Gov't makes strides in COVID-19 fight
Nnasaretha Kgamanyane | Monday April 18, 2022 06:00
He added the initiative was a great achievement because government was on course to achieve the target set by the World Health Organisation (WHO) for countries to have achieved 70% full vaccination of their total populations by mid 2022.
He further stated that currently, more than 60% of the country’s population was fully vaccinated. The acting minister also stated that last year, both WHO and Centres for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) Africa set targets of 40% for countries to have achieved by December 2021, which his ministry also beat.
Lelatisitswe also pointed out that President Mokgweetsi Masisi also set a target of 64% of the then target population of 18 years and above by December 2021 that they also beat as a ministry.
“There is no target that Botswana through MoH&W has not beaten. We will continue to beat other targets that will be set for us. The journey we have travelled starting with the ‘Arm Ready’ campaign right up to the now ‘Kenna ke wena’ campaign meant to educate people about COVID-19,” he said.
“The nation now knows more about the pandemic than they did in April 2020 when the first case was discovered in Botswana. We still have challenges with our vaccination process. Many young people aged 18 to 29 years are not keen to get vaccinated.”
He further explained that many Batswana who were vaccinated were not keen to get their booster shots which was worrying because should a surge in infections come their way, those groups may be at higher risks of disease severity.
For her part, the Director of Health Services, Dr Pamela Smith-Lawrence told the media that with the current rainy season there was a possibility of the country experiencing floods, which might spike the spread of the pandemic.
She called on the youth who had not yet taken their vaccination to do so and urged those who had not taken their booster shots to do so saying they had observed that many people who got their vaccines did not get terminally ill or die because of the pandemic.
Smith-Lawrence further explained that since rainy and winter seasons were approaching, people must take their shots because they could never know what tomorrow would bring them. Moreover, she said Europe and Australia had heavy disease burden while Africa was on a lower trend of COVID-19, Botswana inclusive.
“We in Africa experienced four variants. Botswana is still in a red. From end of November last year to January this year, COVID-19 numbers went down. From February to March the trend is exiting. We only have 53 new cases from April 3, 2022 to April 6, 2022. In the same period we had 145 active cases and zero deaths. To date total deaths remain at 2,688,” she said.
Furthermore, she explained that there was a new Omicron sub-lineage detected in Botswana. The new variant mutation had flu like symptoms and was a sub linage of Omicron. She however explained that amongst the four people found with the new variant, none was admitted and neither died of the new variant.
She however advised the public to be cautious and keep on abiding by the COVID-19 protocols. She also said MoH&W would keep a close eye on the new variant. Smith-Lawrence added that her ministry used many ways to ensure that it reaches out to the public to get the doses inclusive of booster shots.
Moreover, the MoH&W permanent secretary Grace Muzila called on Batswana to take advantage of the vaccinations and take shots. She said the government spent millions of pula on the jabs and if not utilised, they might have to dispose them meaning a loss of that money.
However, she pointed out that in order not to misuse government money, they look at the supply and demand side therefore communicates with the supply on when to bring them and the quantity needed. This is to try eliminating possibility of vaccines from expiring.
“At first when we ordered the first doses donations were scarce. We bought looking at our population. However, after that many donations came in and on top of the P3.4 million vaccinations we bought we got more together with the ones we bought totalising to P6.4 million. Currently, we have 400 000 doses of Modena that expired last week,” she said.
She added that other COVID-19 jabs would be expiring on June thus the importance of Batswana to vaccinate. She also said her ministry would not be buying many jabs as before but rather buy limited amount because they will be focusing on other age groups that also need to be vaccinated. MoH&W will soon be buying jabs for children aging between five to 11 years.