Minister of Health, Dr Frank Anthony says that the public criticism and call for the suspension of the use of the Sputnik V vaccine has caused setbacks in the country’s COVID-19 inoculation programme.
These remarks were made during his daily COVID-19 update yesterday where he stated that the government has been working on improving vaccinations here and addressing myths that persons may harbour as it relates to the effectiveness of vaccines.
“These include persons not understanding how vaccines work. They question the efficacy of the vaccines and more recently you have some political parties who have come out openly about vaccination,” he said, adding that the latter has caused some setback in the programme as there was a vocal Opposition discouraging persons from getting their vaccines and even calling for the suspension of one of the vaccines used here.
Anthony noted that this has contributed to more people becoming hesitant to take the shots, and has made it very difficult for health workers to undo the damage that was done by the Opposition. However, he said that professionals are on the ground and have been working to ensure that everyone understands the importance of vaccinations.
To this end, the minister disclosed that the authorities are working on different approaches and in addition to having fixed sites in the various regions, they have started some house-to-house and community outreaches in a further attempt to encourage persons to become inoculated. “We also on those outreaches, have vaccination teams that would be mobile so that as they go through the house-to-house exercise, if there are people who would like to get their vaccines that they would be able to get that right there.”
With regard to Region Ten which has been lagging in its vaccine uptake, Anthony noted that they have seen slight improvements there and would like to see an even higher number of persons inoculated as community leaders work to ensure a better understanding and appreciation of how vaccines work.
“In Region One we have taken the house-to-house approach now [and] in Region Ten we have had some exercises with house-to-house. In Region Nine we are doing the same, going village by village trying to get more people vaccinated and in some of the other regions on the coastland most of the RHO’s and their teams have adopted this approach,” the minister said.
He let it be known that the ministry is also working with some organisations to get their worksites to organise vaccination campaigns and is even working to put together a set of initiatives where persons would be rewarded for taking vaccines. This initiative he said is currently being worked on in collaboration with the private sector.
“By and large we are working now to counter the negativity that was caused by the opposition.” Anthony iterated.
