Vaccine overdose girl awaits promised help

LINDA SOKO TEMBO writes THE condition of the 11-year-old girl of Nampundwe area, in Sibuyunji District, allegedly given elephantiasis vaccine overdose by a security guard in January 2018, has not improved since the incident occurred. Mercy Kalesa’s mother, Carol Mweemba, told the Sun, in a telephone interview that her child was still having seizures, headaches […]

Vaccine overdose girl awaits promised help
LINDA SOKO TEMBO writes THE condition of the 11-year-old girl of Nampundwe area, in Sibuyunji District, allegedly given elephantiasis vaccine overdose by a security guard in January 2018, has not improved since the incident occurred. Mercy Kalesa’s mother, Carol Mweemba, told the Sun, in a telephone interview that her child was still having seizures, headaches and suffered from a condition called incontinence “lack of voluntary control over urination or defecation.” THE SUN: Tell us how you are coping with the child from last year. MS MWEEMBA: Mercy is much better but still suffers seizures, headaches and incontinence she is able to walk but gets tired very fast. Mercy usually has headaches when she is in class it is difficult for us to stop her from going to school she loves school very much. Her seizers come about every time she when she is scared or when she is shouted at.   The other problem that she has from the time she was given the wrong elephantiasis vaccine dosage her urine baller is very weak and urine is always coming out we have to force her to wear diapers all the time and its costly for us. THE SUN: what does the health practitioner who attend to her say MS MWEEMBA: The doctors at Levy Mwanawasa Teaching Hospital say every time we go to collect medicine say she will be fine because hormones in her body are still developing. From the time the child had these complications, our lives with my husband has not been the same we are really struggling all our finances have gone towards seeing that she gets better. Our appeal is that Government comes to our aid to help us look after Mercy she has this problem because of the negligence of the health workers at Nampundwe Clinic, who decided to allow a security guard to administer the vaccine to children when he was not trained for the job. The Ministry of Health promised that they would help us but up to now, nothing has happened they have not responded. We would appreciate if they helped us with diapers and other basic things but we have not received any help not even to take her for checkups and to collect medicine we have to find our own transport. I had to approach the social welfare department to help us take our daughter to school who was supposed to be in grade nine but has to repeat this year to grade eight because she was hardly in class last year. They promised that they would help us pay for her school fees this year. The Sun