This case was an urgent application which related to the exercise of the right to access Covid- 19
related information during an intense lockdown in January 2021. The matter was filed on the 15th
of January 2021 and it was heard on an urgent basis. High Court Judge, Justice Mary Dube, ruled in
favour of MISA Zimbabwe and ordered the following:
• To publish and disseminate on all available platforms, in all official languages, information on
the occurrence and prevalence of the then new Covid-19 Variant 501Y.V2.
• The court said if the strain was found to be existent in Zimbabwe, the two ministries must
communicate the pathology of the Covid-19 virus strain 501Y.V2 as well as measures to be taken by
the public in respect of this strain.
• Furthermore, the courts ordered the two ministers to communicate Covid-19 statistics per
district and to include disaggregated data in terms of age, location and gender.
• To communicate Covid-19 statistics in relation to immigration and cross border travel and that
such reports should include the number of returning residents received and their Covid-19 status.

Results/Impact
In compliance with this High Court order, the Ministries of Health and Information managed, to a
larger extent to comply with the order. The government, through these responsible Ministries, managed
to provide extensive daily updates on the progression of Covid-19 in Zimbabwe.
The situational reports also disaggregated the data by gender, age and district with regards to new cases
and also recorded new deaths. However, in terms of language used in Covid-19 updates, only 19% of the
16 official languages were used in the Ministries’ Covid-19 messages.
The most prominent language was English followed by Shona and isiNdebele. The daily situational
reports published by the Ministry of Health were restricted to English.

GENDER MAINSTREAMING
The skits mentioned earlier, were gender sensitive as they focused on vaccination of pregnant women or
those breastfeeding. While the skits encouraged them to be vaccinated based on information from WHO,
the government was not committal in its pronouncements encouraging women to be vaccinated on the
strength of their doctors’ advice.
The skits also busted myths on vaccines and generally educated people on how to minimise the spread
of Covid-19. The explainer videos focused on behavioral change as well as vaccination for children and
mixing of vaccines.
The skits received positive feedback on social media after initially being targeted for abuse by antivaxxers.
This cyber bullying resulted in reluctance by content producers to produce pro-vaccine content in some
instances.
The skits also promoted access to information and accountability by analysing the budget allocations for
Covid-19. This helped in breaking down the budget for easy understanding by citizens.
Pursuant to the mentioned initiatives, MISA Zimbabwe also produced a documentary to highlight the
plight of people with disabilities in marginalised areas. The documentary highlighted the state of access

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