HARARE, Jan. 24 (Xinhua) -- Zimbabwe is set to start rolling out an oral cholera vaccination campaign targeting multiple hotspot districts next Monday, Health and Child Care Minister Douglas Mombeshora said Wednesday.

This will be the first vaccination campaign in the country since the current outbreak began in February last year.

Addressing a press conference in Harare, the capital of Zimbabwe, Minister Mombeshora said Zimbabwe is set to receive its first batch of cholera vaccines totaling 892,286 doses from the International Coordinating Group (ICG) Sunday, ahead of the commencement of the vaccination campaign Monday.

In total, the country has secured about 2.3 million doses of the oral cholera vaccine from the ICG, which will deliver the vaccines to Zimbabwe in batches.

"The vaccination campaign is expected to start from Jan. 29 in a phased approach in the hotspots. This is because the doses are not enough to cover the whole country. So we have targeted to start with the hotspots and then roll on to the other affected districts as we receive more vaccines," Mombeshora said.

There is currently a shortage of cholera vaccines in the world due to cholera outbreaks in other African countries.

Mombeshora said the targeted districts are in the most affected provinces of Harare, Manicaland, Masvingo, Midlands, Mashonaland East, Mashonaland West and Mashonaland Central.

The targeted age group is from one year and above and for this campaign, only one dose will be given as opposed to the usual two doses, the minister said. "One dose will protect the individual for at least six months as opposed to two doses which have a protection of above three years," he said.

Zimbabwe has been battling a cholera outbreak for close to a year now, which has spread to 60 of the 64 districts in the country due to poor hygiene and sanitation conditions in the country.

According to the health minister, Zimbabwe's cumulative suspected cholera cases since last February stood at 20,121 as of Tuesday this week.

The case fatality rate stands at 1.8 percent, against the 1 percent recommended by the World Health Organization.

Mombeshora said in the last 24 hours, Zimbabwe had recorded six deaths due to suspected cholera. Enditem

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