BY JOHANNES MARISA PANDEMICS are very stubborn and collaborative efforts are required from all citizens if the public health war is to be won easily. Public health plays an important role in curtailing the spread of viruses like COVID-19. Public health is the science of protecting and improving the health of people and their communities. This work is achieved through promoting healthy lifestyles, researching disease and injury prevention, detecting, preventing and responding to infectious diseases. Many people do not seem to understand that in times of outbreaks, there must be robust and sometimes extraordinary responses in order to reduce both morbidity and mortality. Social media has been awash with negative and retrogressive news about the availed vaccines and the extended lockdown announced by President Emmerson Mnangagwa on Monday. During this century, the world has been hit by at least four pandemics which claimed about 60 million people. The Spanish flu of 1918-20 was caused by H1N1 influenza A virus and it went on to infect about 500 million people, a third of the entire population by then. About 50 million people died. In 1957, the Asian flu struck, killing about four million people. It was realised that mass vaccination was necessary in order to contain the virus and an American microbiologist, Maurice Hilleman began the vaccine manufacturing process in May 1957 and within four months, a vaccine was available for human use. The pandemic was halted and order returned to the world. What was to follow was the 1968-69 Hong Kong flu which again receded with the introduction of a vaccine. Vaccination has been one of the potent public health interventions to curtail outbreaks as communities develop herd immunity to a specific disease. COVID-19 has been tormenting the entire world since December 2019 when it was first reported in China. So many scientists have been trying to come up with specific drugs and vaccines. Pharmaceutical companies came up with vector and messenger RNA vaccines. Messenger RNA vaccines like Moderna and Pfizer do not contain any viruses but they may be difficult to administer in low-resourced countries as their maintenance is difficult. Moderna vaccine needs to be frozen at -20 degrees celcius while Pfizer needs about -70 degrees celcius. These temperatures are difficult to achieve in low-resourced countries. This is one of the reasons why many countries in Africa have turned to vector vaccines which include SinoPharm (Chinese vaccine), AstraZeneca (Oxford), Sputnik V (Russian) and Johnson Johnson. Their storage temperatures are favourable, between 2-8 degrees celcius which is feasible with our simple refrigerators and cooler boxes. We are left with no option except to accept some of these vaccines. South Africa had a mutant strain of the COVID-19, B.1.351, which seemed not to respond to the Oxford vaccine, AstraZeneca hence the suspension of the rollout. Their trials revealed the poor efficacy, hence the quandary about the vaccination programme in the country. What everyone should know is w