By Angela Atabo
An International non- governmental organisation, Christian Aid, on Friday said that the strategic engagement of citizens by religious leaders was crucial as part of efforts to tackle COVID-19 in Africa.
Christian Aid and its partners gave the submission while hosting a high-level virtual discussion on COVID-19 vaccine access and uptake in Africa and the role of faith leaders as part of continued focus on ending the pandemic.
According to Jeanne Kamara, the Country Director of Christian Aid in Sierra Leone, Africa has been laid back in accepting the vaccines due to some religious and superstitious beliefs.
Kamara said, the voices of religious leaders is critical in making sure that the narrative is changed, so people can protect themselves and their families against COVID-19.
She said that Christian Aid partners, who are faith leaders from Burundi, Kenya, Nigeria, Sierra Leone and Zimbabwe shared their experiences of supporting access to COVID-19 vaccines.
Rev. John Hayab, Chairman, Christian Association of Nigeria (CAN), Kaduna chapter, while sharing the Nigerian experience on hindrances to accepting the COVID-19 vaccine, said that initially, people were skeptical about taking the vaccine.
Hayab said that people questioned the vaccine, adding that fear and the belief that the vaccine was anti-Christ and so it would do more harm than good was partly the reason why people rejected the vaccine.
In Nigeria, only 27.5 million people have taken the vaccine and our population is about 200 million, this means that Nigeria has not gone above 12 per cent in the number of people who have taken the vaccine.
Some hindrances to taking the vaccine include doubt about the vaccine and insecurity.
So, faith-based organisations collaborated with the government and other stakeholders to take the campaign to citizens to encourage people to take the vaccine.
Religious leaders had to take the vaccine in order to convince members that it was not harmful.
We encouraged people to take the vaccine using scriptures to support the claim that God encourages us to take vaccines, he said
Hayab said that the assembling of Christian medical experts was also key to addressing peoples hesitancy in taking the vaccine, likewise effective security was key to motivate people to take the vaccine.
Mr Moses Jorkie, a Sierra Leonean Parliamentarian and Chairman, Committee on Health and Sanitation, said that Africa had yet to meet 70 per cent target of COVID-19 vaccine intake due to some stereotypes.
Jorkie said that in moving forward, there was need to begin to change the negative narrative around COVID-19 vaccines to make people embrace it.
He added that there was need for governments to brace up to improve the economy to cushion the impact of COVID-19.
Rev. Nicola Hakizimana, Senior Pastor, Well of Life Church, Burundi, while sharing the experience from Burundi, said that when the pandemic started, it was strange to Africa, so information sharing on the pandemic was difficult.
Hakizimana said that the church began to carry out campaigns and co-opted faith-based medical personnel to do rapid test for people and detect symptoms.
This eased off the initial fear as people were advised to listen to the governments instructions.
This helped a lot as the country recorded lower number of COVID-19 cases, he said.
Some of the participants, who spoke from Kenya and Zimbabwe, called for a collective action as faith-based organisations to get everyone vaccinated, so the African economy could rise and people become able to live their normal lives.
They said that this was imperative because religious leaders had strong roles for social change and most people needed to hear voices that would convince them to take the vaccine.
They also recommended a coordinated advocacy at the regional level by faith leaders and Civil Society Organisations(CSOs) to engage countries, so Africa could produce its own vaccines.
The participants therefore called for further engagement of faith leaders in mitigating future pandemics. (NAN)
Source: NAN News