Portuguese in Beira are vaccinated because of cholera

The Portuguese community in Beira is vaccinated with Portuguese patronage, especially due to cholera, an illness devalued by José Arsénio, the uncontainable Portuguese who worried the military the most and rescued this week.

At the Portuguese consulate in Beira, on the first day of vaccination, many dozens of Portuguese were already waiting for the vaccines before the case even began on Friday morning.

Among them was José Arsénio da Fonseca, a Portuguese who worried the Portuguese authorities for being unconcealed until this week, since the cyclone Idai. But Jose Arsénio, known by Sequeira, who was the father’s name, just wants to go home.

José Arsénio was questioned by the military who were promoting the process of vaccination of the Portuguese if he also did not want to vaccinate, but he always refused. She just wanted to get him back home, where they took him out on Wednesday.

The vaccines that arrived in the Portuguese community are 600 sets, each including cholera, but also polio, measles, rubella, diphtheria, tetanus, typhoid and hepatitis A, explained to the major pharmacist João Roseiro, responsible for the vaccine circuit to Beira.

The vaccines “are part of a vaccination plan that was created for residents of Mozambique, in the region of Beira, the result of the cyclone“, which was prepared in Portugal, “together with the Hospital of the Armed Forces and the Military Laboratory,” said the head of the Army, admitting that if necessary it is planned to send more vaccines to the city.

João Roseiro says that the most important at the moment is the vaccination against cholera, with 271 cases in the city of Beira, according to the latest official figures. “We appeal to all the Portuguese to do the vaccination.”

Nilsia Gomes was one of the Portuguese women who responded to the appeal and who, with her husband and two children, contributed to a full room in the Portuguese consulate. It was the consulate that informed the initiative and barely opened doors there were with two children, the other two to go also after school.

“We did not have it here in Beira, we never heard about the cholera vaccine, it’s the first time we’ve been warned,” she told, explaining that she and her husband and children have other vaccines from the “package” and that they were there essentially because of cholera.

“Cholera is the biggest concern, especially for children, who are most vulnerable.” And then, in the neighbourhood where he lives, there are cases of diarrhoea and even the child complains of tummy aches.

José Aguiar, an entrepreneur selling construction equipment and another of the Portuguese already vaccinated, does not complain of stomach pains, but warns that if any of his employees have diarrhoea, he is “immediately suspended and sent to the doctor“, preferably to a private clinic, because “hospitals are saturated.”

Aguiar already has most of the vaccines, took the reinforcement of some, but also says that cholera was the most important. “Although you have all the necessary care, such as not using water from the public network” and in physical contacts with other people.

“If I had not come here for sure I would go to Maputo to take the vaccine to be safe,” he assured.

The same for Nilsia, who goes home “much more rested, especially by the children, who play around.”

José Arsénio da Fonseca also wanted to go home rested. But you can not. Retired by Portuguese marines from a place 30 kilometres from Buzi, a district that was isolated due to floods caused by Cyclone Idai, presented as the Portuguese that most worried the authorities for not being contactable do not hide the annoyance to be there.

Asked why he does not go by boat to Buzi he responds with annoyance as if he had already done it several times, that lives 30 kilometres from Buzi, which brought him to Beira by air and that is how they should put it at home.

“I’m trying to get me by helicopter, from Buzi to there are 30 kilometres.” In Beira, there is no way to “ride a bicycle” to Bandua, the house from which the Marines were taken and where the woman is waiting.

The former sugar worker from Buzi says he has lost agricultural products with floods, which has a lot of work. But he also says that the cyclone did not damage the room and that the water only reached the “second step of the house“.

To the house that wants to go now. Because anger has always been there and he only has high blood pressure.