Zomba District Health Office (DHO) says parents in low density areas and in houses surrounded by brick fences refuse to open gates to let health workers give oral polio vaccine to their children.
To this effect, Health Promotion Officer at Zomba District Health Office, Arnold Mndalira has called on the media to raise awareness by reporting more on dangers of polio and the need to vaccinate all children under-five.
Mndalira who is also Zomba DHO Public Relations Officer made the call on Saturday in Zomba when the Zomba DHO met with Zomba based reporters to update them on under-five oral polio vaccination.
He said health workers met a lot of resistance in the urban areas where houses are surrounded by brick fences.
Mndalira observed that most parents in those houses refused to open their gates and let the health workers to vaccinate children against polio during the just ended phase of polio vaccination.
The Health Promotion Officer further observed that there are still some parents that fail to understand dangers of polio saying this was the reason why they could not allow their children to get polio vaccine.
“There are still some parents that cannot understand the dangers of polio and it’s our plea to those parents that they should not underestimate polio. Polio is transmittable and polio is real dangerous,” he added.
He said Zomba DHO has written letters to block leaders in the city, traditional chiefs in rural areas and religious leaders to let them disseminate information to their subjects and congregants respectively about the under-five oral polio vaccination campaign which is expected to start from 11 up to 14 August.
The DHO has therefore called on all parents and guardians in Zomba to allow their under-five children to get vaccinated against polio.
Malawi recorded a case of polio in Lilongwe and later in Balaka and this prompted the government and WHO to intensify polio vaccination across the country.
“Our volunteers have already started moving door to door to raise awareness on the polio vaccination campaign that will start soon, ” Mndalira said.
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