ST KIZITO CATHOLIC PRIMARY SCHOOL RECEIVES ITS CHOLERA VACCINE.
The Ministry of Health in Malawi announced that there is a Cholera Outbreak in January 2022. The disease has slowly been spreading from Nsanje where it started to other districts in the southern part of Malawi which includes Neno, Chikwawa, Machinga and Blantyre.
Cholera is an acute diarrheal infection caused by ingesting food or water contaminated with bacteria. The disease affects both children and adults and if untreated can kill within hours.
The Malawi government through its Health Ministry spokesperson Adrian Chikumbe announced that they will be administering Cholera vaccine from the 23rd of May 2022 and they have 2.9 million doses of oral cholera vaccine at hand.
ST Kizito Catholic Primary School is one of the schools which were targeted to have received the oral Cholera Vaccine.
However, Virginia Kunje a Healthy Surveillance Assistant at Chilomoni Healthy Centre said that it was important for her and her team to come through at ST Kizito to administer this vaccine to protect the Children since the school is surrounded by areas which have been hit with the outbreak like Sigelege and Zambia in Blantyre.
“People should not hesitate to have this oral cholera vaccine (OCV) because cholera is contagious and this vaccine is administered to all individuals from a year old and above” Said Kunje.
Wathu Nkosi ,a 9 year old girl who is in Standard 4 at St Kizito said that it was wise for her to receive the vaccine so she can continue focusing on her studies and achieve her dreams without any health issues related to cholera.
Cementing on the matter, the head teacher of ST Kizito Victoria Mary Nakoma said that she was impressed because the vaccine will help her students to not be infected with the outbreak and their class performance will not be affected.
“All the staff have received this oral cholera vaccine because they are part of the St Kizito family and if some of them are sick it will disturb their duties which will lower the development of this country through education”, Nakoma said.
