Secret vaccinations help Zimbabwe mothers protect children

Dozens of women holding babies rushed to take their places on wooden benches at a clinic in Zimbabwe while a nurse took a separate group of anxious mothers and their children through a back door and into another room. The nurse quickly closed the door behind them.

The women were all at the Mbare Polyclinic in Zimbabwe’s capital, Harare, to get their children vaccinated against measles amid a deadly outbreak in the southern African country. But those who were taken to the back room were getting their children vaccinated in secret, and in defiance of religious doctrine that forbids them from using modern medicines.

“The advent of the measles outbreak saw children dying so they are now coming secretly and we are helping them,” said Lewis Foya, a nurse at the clinic.

More than 700 children have died from measles in Zimbabwe in an outbreak first reported in April. Many