‘Critical Stakeholders, Family, Key In COVID-19 Vaccination’

Critical stakeholders such as traditional rulers and the family unit have been identified as persons to target in Rivers State in order for the state to achieve the targeted 50 percent COVID-19 vaccination by the end of January.
This is part of recommendation contained in a communique from a recent roundtable discussion between “Rivers Media for Health” and religious stakeholders.
The roundtable discussion, comprising the Christian and Muslim faiths, stated that traditional rulers can achieve a lot by “engaging town criers in the education and sensitisation efforts in the rural areas”.
They also noted that when the family unit is educated on the need and importance of COVID-19 vaccination, it will change the perception of such families towards the vaccination.
“Efforts targeting the family unit with the right information about COVID-19 was suggested to help dispel the my ths and misconceptions they hold about COVID-19 and the vaccination, as that is the fundamental place where decisions are taken to either accept or reject vaccination”
The discussion, which was held at the RSPHCMB, observed, among others, that for the State to achieve the target of vaccinating 50 percent of the targeted population, there should be “continuous awareness creation to educate and enlighten people about the reality of the COVID-19 pandemic in which Nigeria is in the 4th wave”.
It also commended the State Governor, Nyesom Wike, for showing good leadership in being the first to take concrete steps to fight the spread of COVID-19 at the beginning of the pandemic, by closing the borders of the State even before the federal government and other states took any action.
They prayed him to continue with that zeal in the fight against the pandemic.
The discussion noted that while the State has the target of vaccinating 50 percent of the eligible adults in the estimated population of people in the State, less than 500,000 persons have been vaccinated with either the first, second and/or booster doses of both the Astraseneca and Moderna vaccine since the vaccination exercise started in March 2021.
It further observes that Myths, poor behavioural change by key stakeholders, campaign fatigue and ownership by religious leaders were identified as some major challenges of vaccination up take.
In the same vein, demonstration of COVID-19 vaccine acceptance by religious leaders was observed to be a major catalyst in making members of their various congregations accept taking the vaccine, with a significantly higher vaccine acceptance observed among the Muslim faithfuls in the State.
Consequently, “continuous awareness creation with testimonials from people who have survived COVID-19 would be effective in dispelling doubts that COVID-19 is a scam and build trust in government’s efforts in checking the pandemic”.

By: Sogbeba Dokubo