Titilola Obilade
attempts at global vaccination is a case in point. Globally, the pandemic has claimed almost 3 million lives and infected more than 137 million people. In low income countries, 1 in 500 people have been vaccinated while 1 in 5 people have been vaccinated in high income countries. About 680 million vaccine doses have been administered worldwide but poor nations have only received about 0.1 percent of the total number of doses administered. In Africa, less than 2 percent of its 1.3 billion population has been vaccinated.
While many countries were unable to procure even a singular vaccine type, some countries like Canada has been able to secure enough doses of different vaccine types to vaccinate its population five time over. Inequalities existed before the pandemic but has been exacerbated by the unequal distribution of vaccines. Primary Health Care is the rudimentary key to unlocking people’s resistance and hesitancy to vaccination. The beauty in PHC is that the people that work or volunteer at the PHC centers are members of the community and are therefore known to the enclave. If a foreigner enters a community and tells the people to take vaccines or tries to convince them in the existence of a coronavirus, they would not believe him/ her. Similarly, if anyone outside the community, visits that community even if s/ he’s a doctor and tries to convince them to imbibe a progressive health behavior, they would not believe such people. Rather, they would look at these outsiders suspiciously. A foreigner in this article is someone who is not part of the community and s/ he does not live or work in the community. S/ he may not know the nuances in that community. That foreigner might be highly knowledgeable and experienced in the treatment of diseases but as long as s/ he is a foreigner to that community, s/ he would be looked upon with suspicion.
However, if a village or voluntary health worker that resides in that community takes the vaccine and later tries to convince them to also take it, s/ he would have a greater chance of success than if someone they consider as an outsider who they do not trust and who they do not know on a personal level tries to convince them to take the vaccine.
In this present dispensation, just like the Iroko tree is durable and has many uses, the PHC is a powerful tool that has been under- utilized for too long. We need to harness the power behind the PHC at this time more than at any other time. We have undervalued the power of PHC for too long and that has not been in in our favour. Primary Health Care is integral to solving the impediments to debunking conspiracy theories, sensitization and vaccination. It is like an Iroko tree that some countries have embraced wholeheartedly and reaped the benefits. We too can embrace our PHC given the right climate.