The Ministry of Health has translated public service announcements (PSA) and information on vaccinations into nine Indigenous languages.
This was disclosed by the Health Minister, Dr Frank Anthony, during his daily COVID-19 update where he stated that in an effort to get information across to many of the communities that speak these languages, the authorities have begun the translation of these PSAs.
“The ministry has been able to hire someone who translated messages pertaining to vaccination, the importance of vaccination, the safety of vaccines in all of the indigenous languages,” he said. These translated messages have also been aired on various radio stations.
Anthony expressed the hope that it would help to clear up misinformation about the vaccines and that the PSAs will be heard more often so persons can become familiar with the messages. “In some of the regions apart from our Indigenous languages, there are persons who speak a mixture of perhaps Portuguese and English or Portuguese and in other parts people are speaking Spanish so we have persons who have been able to work with those communities.”
He said that now, if there is a need to help persons understand more about the vaccines, they will be able to do so. However, he noted that while they have overcome the hurdle of the language barrier, the authorities are still confronted by the issue of community leaders and persons of influence discouraging residents from getting the vaccine.
“We’re still confronted by a problem in some communities where people who have influence in those communities, some of the faith based leaders, have been telling the church members not to take the vaccine,” the minister was quoted as saying.
He urged those leaders and other churches that that may be affiliated nationally to impress upon their members the importance of being vaccinated.
