High sex drive

PRIORITY to conjugal duties is making some mothers in polygamous marriages to abstain from attending to outreach child health care services for growth monitoring in Katete District.This is according to a Plan International Zambia report presented to the District Nutrition Coordinating Committee (DNCC) yesterday.The report, which highlights the organisation’s third quarter nutrition activities in Katete, states that some mothers preferred attending to their marital needs than the health of their children.“Some of the reasons advanced by some caregivers in polygamous marriages were that it was their turn to enjoy conjugal rights and that while attending a growth monitoring programme, another wife would attend to the husband,” the report reads in part.The report has cited communities like Undi to have exhibited high levels of resistance to nutrition programmes such as growth monitoring outreach programmes.The report says a child suffering from Edema, a severe malnutrition condition, recently died because the mother refused advise to take the baby to the health centre.Further, the District Public Health Officer Chaonza Banda added that there was a village under Undi Community that had stopped attending any health activities.Mr Banda added that another Village under Mzime had also stopped attending health activities that had been taken to the area.According to Mr Banda some women have received threats that they will be banished from the village if the dare attend mother and child care health outreach activities.He said this was especially observed during the last child health week, when the country recorded a lot of Covid-19 cases.He added that one of the contributing factors to this was the rumor that there was a vaccine that was created and would be first tested on the African continent.In reaction, the headmen instructed their people to refuse health services for fear of being injected with the Corona virus.“And because of this, it affected the turn out and most parents, because of such a rumor, they would rather have their child die from home than being taken for injection which they were told was a Corona Virus injection,” he said.The Committee hence agreed to engage the traditional leadership on these matters in order to come to array their fears and make them understand that health and nutrition programmes were meant for their own good.The Committee also agreed to involve the District Child Protection Committee to enforce some laws, as denying children access to health services and nutrition services was infringing on the children rights to health, which is a form of child abuse. ZANIS The Sun