Novel Corona virus
By Pedmia Shatu
The COVID-19 Pandemic has greatly affected the world economy and has resulted to untold damage to lives and communities. With over 100 million COVID-19 cases worldwide and over 2 million deaths and a continuous wide spread and resurgence in many countries, the battle against this virus is far from being over. The resurgence of COVID-19 in many countries have been linked to the non- respect for barrier measures by individuals largely fueled by the misinformation and conspiracy theories surrounding the vaccine.
Corona virus vaccine
The entire world received a sigh of relieve after significant milestones of vaccine development was announced by the World Health Organization. However instead of this great scientific progress being celebrated, the speed of vaccine development has further strengthen certain conspiracy theories thereby increasing hesitancy to the vaccine by most people. With misinformation about COVID-19 vaccine trending all over social media and the drama surrounding the origin of the virus, most public health experts have warned of a stiff vaccine resistance especially among African states.
It is on this premise that Value Health Africa, organized a two-day online international conference on the theme, “vaccine hesitancy, conspiracy theories and the way forward recently to help build healthy communities.
Throughout 2020, Value Health Africa carried out series of research on” perceptions, attitudes and believes of Africans on COVID-19 and a possible COVID-19 vaccine in 4 African countries. Analysis of the research showed that only 5% of respondents had moderate knowledge of COVID-19. 33% of respondents did not even believe in the existence of the virus while a large 76% believed COVID-19 is not of natural origin.
Among the respondents, only 7% agree of taken a covid-19 vaccine if it is being developed. According to Mercy Kyeng of Value Health Africa, the arrival of COVID-19 vaccine in some African countries was received with mixed feelings increasing tensions and assault on health care workers. Parents have boycotted their children from school and women have stopped routine vaccination of their children for fear of them being injected with the COVID-19 Vaccine. Health care workers have been objects of assault as they are accused to siding with the government to administer COVID-19 vaccine to people without their knowledge.
Kyeng Mercy
There is therefore a need to for the scientific community to put ideas together, share ideas and design the way forward. The conference therefore provided a platform to bridge the barriers leading to vaccine reluctance and resistance with focus on providing credible information about Covid-19 vaccine, to counter misinformation and conspiracy theories surrounding covid-19 vaccine and to design the way forward for information management for pandemics and to foster individual and community acceptance of covid-19 vaccine.
With national and internal experts from the public health, WHO,GAVI, Africa CDC, Ministries of Health and CSO representatives who took turns to educate the over 50 participants on how to manage misinformation about the Covid-19 pandemic and vaccine hesitancy, a number of recommendations were taken that can help key stakeholders in managing the challenges that come with the pandemic and conspiracy theories around the vaccine.
Mbianke Livancliff
VAHA Immunization focal point
Some of the key take home include action to be taken by All important sectors within the community such as media houses, religious leaders,opinion leaders, Civil societies, humanitarian organizations and government institutions to work in synergy in the spirit of honesty and transparency to chat a strategic plan to address the vaccine scenario.
Also, that there should be extensive review of papers, surveys and research on COVID-19 to get the real picture of what is happening within the communities as well as frequent press briefings by all health structures and health state personnel to constantly update citizens on the developments.
The participants and speakers also saw the need for an African regulatory board to regulate vaccines within the African continent, so that only vaccines thoroughly scrutinized and verified by African scientists should be accepted. This should include getting all Heads of State together to ensure this takes effect.
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