By Kemo Cham
A major drive to increase uptake of Covid-19 vaccine in Sierra Leone has been launched.
The campaign is designed to counter the effect of vaccine hesitancy and apathy, which are driven by fake news and which have caused many Sierra Leoneans to reject the jabs.
Since Sierra Leone started vaccination against the viral pandemic in March 2021, less than 3 percent of the country’s population has received at least one dose of a vaccine, data from the National Covid-19 Emergency Response Center (NaCOVERC) show.
The Accelerated Covid-19 Vaccination campaign, launched on Saturday September 25 in Tombo in the Western Area Rural, is being championed by the FOCUS 1000 in collaboration with the Ministry of Health and Sanitation (MoHS) and the Africa Epidemiology Network (AFENET) based in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia. The campaign is being funded by the Africa Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (Africa CDC) which is determined to raise the continent’s coverage of the Covid-19 vaccine.
A key element of this campaign is the involvement of a group of grassroots organizations which has made a name for itself in the art of community mobilization - the Kombra Network. It comprises religious scholars who use the scriptures of the two dominant faiths in the country - Christianity and Islam - to appeal to the masses in promoting recommended health seeking behaviors.
The Kombra Network also include traditional healers, market women, journalists and civil society activists.
Mohamed Bailor Jalloh, Chief Executive Officer of FOCUS 1000, explained that they will be working in tandem with all the stakeholders with the goal of accelerating the vaccination of the target population - 18 years and above. He added that the goal is to raise awareness about the importance of the vaccination, its safety and to encourage people to take it.
Jalloh cited the experience of his organization helping in the fight against 2014-2016 Ebola epidemic.
“Some of these problems, they are more behavioral than medical,” he told journalists on the sidelines of the Tombo event, noting further that all that is needed is to convince the people to change their behavior by accepting the vaccine and following other measures put in place.
“It’s a very simple message, take vaccine and save your life,” he stressed.
Dr Ramadan Jalloh, the chairperson of the Kombra Network, who is also the head of the Islamic Action Group (CHRISTAG), spoke about the role of caring, which he said has been at the center of the approach of the network from the beginning.
“We have always referred to the suckling mother as ‘Kombra’. But in actual fact the Kombra means anybody who cares for somebody. That very same care the suckling mother has for her baby, is what all of us have, be you a father, the president, ministers… all the stakeholders,” he said.
Dr Jalloh also used Quranic verses to explain why accepting the vaccine is way of obeying God.
“Our creator - God – is the Number One Kombra, because He cares for us, gives us this life and wants for us to live this life. This is why He provides for us everything we need to tackle all the challenges that come our way in life. And praise be to Him, these instruments are so powerful and so rich in the scriptures,” he said.
Dr Jalloh went on: “The Kombra Network brings together people who really matter as far as engaging the communities is concerned. Religious leaders take the lead. Both Muslims and Christians come together to develop messages which are directly from God. We believe in the power of these messages, which we extract from the scriptures, both the Quran and the Bible, to reach our people wherever they are.”
He then cited a verse in the Quran which speaks to the relevance of the campaign.
“Its essence is to save human lives. And Allah says in the Quran: ‘Anyone of you who contributes in saving a single life will be rewarded as though they have saved the whole of mankind,” he said.
Last week the WHO Regional Office for Africa warned that while the third wave of the pandemic was subsiding in the region, the fight against the virus was far from over. It stressed that vaccination was the only way out.
Some countries, according to the global health body, are already in the fourth wave.
Even though it has some of the lowest infection rates, Sierra Leone is ranked among African nations with the least number of vaccinated people. Besides vaccine hesitancy, which has been inspired largely by fake news spread via social media, until recently another contributing factor to this situation in the country has been shortage of the jabs.
But officials at NaCOVERC say there is enough jabs now in the country to vaccinate a substantial portion of population in the next few months.
Dr Amara Jambai, Deputy Minister of Health and Sanitation II, presided over the official launching of the campaign. He praised the role of the Kombra Network and singled out the religious leaders in particular for their decades of efforts in promoting vaccination in the country.
“With Covid-19, some people get infected and healed without even knowing it themselves. But they pose risk to other people with weaker immunity. And the chance of saving such a person’s life is low,” Dr Jambai said, while stressing the importance of the vaccine as a preventive measure.
According to Jambai, it might not necessarily be that people don’t just want to take the vaccine, it could be that they do not have the right information about it, hence the need for community outreach.
“[That is why] we need to spread the message. And that is why we have come up with this kind of strategy – partnership.
As a ministry, we are aware that we can’t do it all alone. We partner with experts who know how to reach out to communities through leadership,” he said.
During Saturday’s event, scores of people turned up for their first jab, a demonstration of the vibrancy of the Kombra Network, whose members went out into the community of Tombo to mobilize unvaccinated people to come for their jabs.
Many of them were Okada (commercial motor bike) riders. One of them, Lutton Idrissa Bendu, sought to allay fears among his colleagues and anyone who cares to listen.
“As you can see, I have just taken the vaccine and I feel normal,” he said, displaying the spot where he had just been injected.
“I do not feel anything that can make me regret taking the vaccine or to discourage other people. I feel happy and appreciative that I have taken it,” Mr Bendu added.
This campaign which will run for one month aims to vaccinate 80, 000 people. Some 100 teams of vaccinators have been deployed across the 16 districts of the country. They include about 16 mobile teams who will move out into hard-to-reach communities to make the vaccines accessible to the people.
Copyright © Politico Online (29/09/21)
