21 Aug 2021

The COVID 19 pandemic has affected service delivery in North West region, says North West District Council official, Ms Kebalepile Horatius.

Presenting District Extension Team (DET) report to District Development Committee (DDC) meeting on Friday, Ms Horatius who is the council’s chief social and development officer said most departments did not manage to take services to people due to the pandemic.

Despite that, she said, District Health Management Team (DHMT) had reported to have conducted Vitamin A campaign for six months old to 59 months old children from May 1 to 31, 2021 where they targeted 9839 infants. Out if this number she said 9235 were covered which translated 90 per cent achievement in Okavango sub district.

Furthermore, 84 per cent of mobile stops were covered during the quarter under review, Ms Horatius noted.

The department, she said, had also reported to have diverted most of the resources to COVID -19 pandemic fight but still cautious about other issues that were a challenge in the district such as Malaria and provision of mobile stop services.

She also indicated that DHMT experienced a high number of COVID -19 infections and the health facilities were overwhelmed. She however stated that they were facilitating home isolations.

The meeting also learnt that the vaccine roll out was progressing well as currently 9 792 received the first dose while 8090 were fully vaccinated across the district.

The development committee also heard that the department of Immigration and Citizenship had registered six cases of illegal immigrants and had not repatriated any illegal migrants due to COVID-19 health protocols.

Ms Horatius also said the department indicated that movement of people at the boarders had increased as compared to the last quarter citing that they had registered 538 arrivals and 516 departures. Only people with COVID 19 test results, she said were permitted to travel.

The house also learnt that department of Civil and National Registration was experiencing low uptake of services due to COVID-19 protocols and as such arrangements had been made to reach out to remote area communities and schools for distribution of identity cards and fresh registrations.

According to Ms Horatius’s DET report, a total of 2 761 cards against 4 226 had been collected, 1 343 births registered while 272 deaths had been registered.

The report also indicates that the department was facing a challenge of false declaration and inconsistency by clients who registered for identity cards with 23 such cases registered mostly in Etsha areas.

It was reported that the department intended to intensify public education on authenticity of legal documents. Ends