VACCINE SENSITISATION

GOVERNMENT and partners must bolster the COVID-19 vaccine sensitization programme in order to get more citizens inoculated.

The media must also take centre stage not only to encourage Zambians to get vaccinated but also to demystify the programme, especially in the rural areas.

In Mushindano, incidences of people resisting and running away from vaccination abound!

Health personnel in the North-western province district are facing resistance from residents regarding any vaccinations due to misleading information and myths.

This has caused worry with district director of health Edgar Mutimushi, complaining that community members believe that the vaccines can cause COVID-19 or other diseases.

In fact, this is the belief in many rural outposts. Even in the urban setting, some people have been peddling conspiracy theories, which have sent fear among some citizens.

Therefore, a more pragmatic sensitization system must be set in motion to encourage and convince the masses that in fact the vaccination is for their own protection and people around them.

In this case, Government and other interest groups must fully utilise community radio stations with well-crafted and appealing messages with a larger component on demystifying the process.

While conspiracy theories peddlers are designing their messages to instill fear and desperation, the Ministry of Health, partners and the media must craft attractive and user-friendly messages for the communities.

The Ministry of Health must also come up with community-based programmes such as drama in highly-populated townships, to disseminate appropriate and effective messages about COVID-19 vaccination.

In outlying and rural districts, the Ministry should use all experts including health promotion officers to engage members of the public through community radio and drama programmes.

Traditional leaders must be fully engaged in programmes because they hold authority in villages and even in the urban setting.

The sensitization programme must also be extended to the Church which commands respect and a large following countrywide.

It will be prudent to quickly debunk the myths doing the rounds that the vaccine contains a microchip which will allow government and corporations to track people who get the jab.

Unscrupulous elements in society are misleading people that the vaccine will alter a person’s DNA while the other is that vaccines are inferior to the body’s immune systems in protecting against COVID-19.

In some cases, some people are made to erroneously believe that the vaccine reduces the sexual fertility in both women and men.

All these theories and fallacies could be damaging particularly among gullible members of society and thus it is incumbent upon Government, interest groups and patriotic Zambians to send the right messages about the vaccine.

Winter season will soon creep in and the cases of COVID-19 may recur in the third wave.

It is thus safer and cheaper to get a vaccine than get hooked to oxygen and other methods of COVID-19 therapy.