North West Department of Health MEC, Dr Madoda Sambatha has raised concerns about a growing number of families who are refusing to get their children vaccinated for measles citing religious and cultural reasons.
The North West has some 168 measles infections with a majority of 148 affected children coming from the Ngaka Modiri Molema District Municipality.
Sambatha in partnership with the North West Department of Education led a vaccination drive against measles at Signal Hill Primary School in Mahikeng on Tuesday.
“One of the serious challenges is an issue of beliefs by families. There are families who don’t believe in any vaccination, and their kids are in the same category of ages up to 15 that need vaccination. Unfortunately, some of them are the first kids who were detected with the same measles, yet their families do not believe in vaccination.
“What it means is if you believe in non-vaccination and still remain a member of communities moving around with others you are a danger to the ones that you are moving with. This is one issue that we are still going to go head-on, engaging communities with,” Sambatha said.
Sambada said North West Province responded immediately after receiving confirmation of the measles outbreak in December last year by launching a campaign in Lichtenburg to mobilise communities to vaccinate their children.
“You will remember that the National Institute for Communicable Diseases (NICD) issued a national call on 2 December 2022 that there is an outbreak of measles in North West, Mpumalanga, Gauteng and Limpopo provinces.
“On 10 December 2022, we launched the campaign in Lichtenburg where they had three cases of measles reported in Lonely Park at the time.
“In terms of the number of vaccinations from 10 December 2022 till today, we have managed to vaccinate 686 000 children between 5 months and 15 years respectively. So, in two months, we have vaccinated 600 000 children,” he said while emphasising that inoculation against measles is crucial.
“We want to ensure that all those who are between 5 months and 15 years old are vaccinated. This also shows the capacity of the department to respond. So, the outbreak is still under control as we are not getting more than 10 reported cases per day,” said Sambatha.
The Education Department usually facilitates parental consent but the Deputy Director-General of the Institution at North West Department of Education, Shadrack Mvula, said parents are increasingly refusing to allow their kids to be seen by health practitioners.
“We are very appreciative of this event. We have been working together with our sister department in creating awareness in terms of this campaign. So, the Department of Education will be working in partnership throughout the districts.
“Well, we have not observed a high volume of scepticism, however, we are aware that there are quite a number of parents, who may not be willing to let their children be vaccinated. Even at this school, we were told that about 25 parents have not signed the consent forms for children to be vaccinated.
“We are hoping that later as they get more information they will change their position, and understand that it is in the best interest of the children to be vaccinated,” he said.
