HARARE, Zimbabwe 

Six months ago, it was taboo for 64-year-old Nehemiah Bande and his followers to accede to the coronavirus vaccines rolled out by the government.

Now that is no more for the apostolic sect church leader in the Zimbabwean capital Harare.

Instead, Bande has rallied his followers to get vaccinated against the deadly disease.

“If we don’t get vaccinated, we won’t be able to worship because the government said only vaccinated worshipers will be allowed to gather for worship,” Bande told Anadolu Agency.

Open-air churches like the one led by Bande had become notorious for snubbing the government’s vaccination programs against the coronavirus.

But last month, the Seventh-day Adventist (SDA) Church became one of Zimbabwe’s leading religious groups to openly encourage its members to embrace the COVID-19 vaccination exercise.

The move by churches like the SDA’s came at a time when Zimbabwe eased its Level 4 lockdown in a bid to allow vaccinated members only to attend sit-in church services.

Last month, Zimbabwe announced that only fully vaccinated people could now attend church services.

Myths about vaccine

Yet before agreeing to the vaccination exercise, many Christian denominations here had linked it to the Biblical Mark of the Beast prophecy in the Book of Revelations Chapter 13 verses 16-18.

“This is the Mark of the Beast, and the devil is getting his people stamped for the final destruction,” 56-year-old Bothwell Nyamupinga, a worshiper in the Methodist Church in Zimbabwe, told Anadolu Agency.

Nyamupinga apparently is the only one at his local church in the capital Harare who has remained adamant that he would not be vaccinated against the coronavirus.

His family, comprising three children and his 51-year-old wife, Belinda, have all given in to the government’s vaccination rollout.

“We go to church where we worship God, who gives wisdom to the scientists to come up with these vaccines that are being used to help us defeat the coronavirus, and there is nothing sinister for us as Christians to get vaccinated,” Belinda told Anadolu Agency.

The SDA Church through its headquarters in the US has allayed fears among its members the world over, saying the coronavirus vaccines were not in any way linked to the biblical end-time prophecy as insinuated by many other denominations.

Churchgoers scramble for vaccines

With many religious denominations like the SDA Church rallying behind vaccinations against the coronavirus, Zimbabwe’s churchgoers who used to shun COVID-19 vaccines on religious grounds are now scrambling for the jabs.

Many worshipers ranging from Muslims to Christians say they now fear they may be caught on the wrong side in the face of the continued emergency of coronavirus variants.

“If we fool ourselves by shunning vaccines, we will all perish because COVID-19 is here to stay and prayer alone may not be a complete weapon against this pandemic,” 57-year-old Tongai Muhacha, who leads a 100-member apostolic sect in Masvingo, Zimbabwe’s oldest town, told Anadolu Agency.

From the Islamic faith, Zimbabwe’s Sheikh Ishmael Duwa, the president of Zimbabwe's Supreme Council, bragged that he was the first Islamic leader to receive the coronavirus vaccine.

“I have decided to share my own vaccination experience with Islamic followers and everyone else just to prove these vaccines are safe and taking them is the only way we may protect our families, children, and communities from this pandemic,” he said.

Learning hard way

Just last year, Muhacha had a narrow escape from COVID-19 in August as the disease pounded the southern African country after the dreaded virus descended on him together with his family.

Alongside several of his followers, Muhacha fell sick then, even as they insisted on infringing on the government’s pandemic restrictions by illegally gathering for worship services without face masks or hand sanitizers to protect them from the disease.

Now, many like Muhacha have learned the hard way, and for him, embracing the coronavirus vaccines rolled out by the government has become the only panacea against the marauding disease.

So far, more than 4,500 people have succumbed to the coronavirus in Zimbabwe, while over 126,000 cases have been recorded.

A total of around 1.9 million Zimbabweans have received their first dose of a COVID-19 vaccine, while over 1.8 million are now fully vaccinated, according to the country's Health Ministry.

Hunger for church revenue fuels vaccinations

Moved by the fast-spreading coronavirus infections, Zimbabwe’s religious leaders like 47-year-old Perkson Gwangwava of Grace Ministries International, a Pentecostal church, said that without vaccination, he fears he may lose the usual income that members bring to his church.

“As we speak, since church gatherings were banned amid coronavirus infections, many people in my church also stopped bringing forward their tithes and offerings, and this means loss of revenue for me and my church. But with the vaccine now being embraced by many worshipers, it means things may begin to work for the good for my church as well because after getting vaccinated, people will stream back into churches for worship,” Gwangwava told Anadolu Agency.

He has also set an example in getting vaccinated against the disease, and now many of his church followers are following suit.

“I can safely say I've already taken my two jabs of the COVID-19 vaccine, in this case, the Sinopharm vaccine from China, and I’m pleased my church members are following in my footprints. I’m encouraging everyone, be it members of the African Traditional Religion, to take the vaccines too,” said Gwangwava.

Traditional religious groups join vaccinations

Zimbabwe’s traditional healers like 77-year-old Dairai Msipa of the Gutu district in the southeastern Masvingo province, despite shunning the vaccines earlier when the government rolled out the program, have now embraced the move.

“Yes, we still take traditional herbs in trying to fight this strange disease, but I have since seen the light in the vaccinations the government is urging us to embrace. I've already taken my two injections of the vaccine, and so many people who have been coming to get traditional medical help from me have also done the same,” Msipa told Anadolu Agency.

As part of efforts to convince various religious groups to receive coronavirus vaccines, in May, UNICEF and Zimbabwe’s Health Ministry partnered with the Apostolic Women Empowerment Trust, hosting a dialogue with the country’s interfaith religious leaders to leverage support for the vaccine rollout.

The faith leaders were drawn from prominent religious groups including Christian, Islamic, and African Traditional Religion.

UNICEF’s Global Faith for Positive Change Initiative has so far trained over 850 interfaith and community leaders across Zimbabwe to support engaging and mobilizing their communities about integrated preventive measures against COVID-19.