BULAWAYO – The deployment of soldiers to administer Covid-19 vaccines in Bulawayo suburbs is instilling fear in the community, a councillor said on Wednesday.
Soldiers have been deployed in two Bulawayo neighbourhoods on week-long mobile vaccination campaigns, the military says as community service ahead of Zimbabwe Defence Forces Day commemorations on August 11.
Ward 24 councillor Arnold Batirai Dube (MDC Alliance) said the military had a history of brutality in Bulawayo, and using soldiers to administer Covid-19 jabs gave the appearance that people were being intimidated to take the vaccines.
“I’ve heard that soldiers are going to vaccinate residents in Bulawayo. Are we running out of staff because I don’t believe in having soldiers vaccinating people, it will be seen as if we are forcing people to vaccinate,” Dube said during a virtual full council meeting.
“We have seen soldiers being used by the state to instill fear in the people, and I don’t think it’s the right thing to do.
“If we’re running out of staff, it would be good for council to hire somewhere rather than take soldiers out of their barracks to vaccinated our people. I don’t think it’s a good idea given our historic issues with soldiers starting from Gukurahundi to date.”
The military is conducting a week-long community outreach in Cowdray Park and Emganwini suburbs hoping to promote the uptake of Covid-19 vaccines.
Dube’s ward covers the suburb of Nketa, which shares a boundary with Emganwini.
Responding to Dube, deputy mayor Mlandu Ncube said: “I don’t think there’s malice in engaging them. We didn’t have a challenge as such but the problem is that numbers of infections are increasing, so when we get a partner to help us vaccinate our people, the decision was taken.”
When Dube sought to respond to Ncube, he was muted.
Zimbabwe plans to vaccinate 10 million people by Christmas, but the uptake of vaccines has been slow with less than 4 percent of the population fully vaccinated.
