By Sandrine M.

The Regional Task Force for Communication on Covid-19 pandemic in the North West have concluded an advocacy meeting geared towards having more people vaccinated in the region.

Chaired by the North West Regional Delegate of Communication, Njike Celestine, the meeting looked at some of the ways to get information reach the suburbs.

“The reason behind this meeting was to finetune how we can get the communication within the region reach the highest suburbs for people to go for vaccines because we realised that for some time now, most of the population of the North West Region have been reticent about going in for vaccines”.

North West Regional Delegate of Communication

According to the Communication focal point at the NW Regional delegation of Public Health, Saho Raoul, the North West Region has registered 61 new cases of Covid-19, recorded one death and saw 110 people recover from the pandemic.

Raoul furthered that, the cumulative Covid-19 statistics in the region stads at 11,439 confirmed cases, 363 deaths and 10,953 recovery cases. He added that the North West Region seconds the Centre Region with the highest number of pregnant women who passed away due to the corona virus.

Saho Raoul

Still during his presentation, Saho Raoul said out of 25,000 people who took the first dose of the covid 19 vaccine in the region, only 14,583 people went back for the second dose meanwhile a total of 47,583 people in the region have taken the monodose of the vaccine. He stated that although the statistics from the region places them slightly above the national average, it is important to step up communication strategies so as to get more people vaccinated.

To see that communication reaches the widest audience possible, the task force involved persons living with disabilities in the region through the communication focal point of CUAPWD, Nsah Edwin.

“We have included people with disabilities…we had to bring in somebody with a disability, Nsah Edwin so that through him, we could reach other people with disabilities and get other people in the sector into the platform”. The Regional Delegate of Communication said.

Speaking during the meeting, Nsah Edwin urged that communication strategies should be inclusive and disability conscious so that it cuts across.

Njike Celestine said some of the reasons why many people are yet to get vaccinated is due to the infodemic of misinformation, disinformation and malinformation. According to him if the narratives are changed and the right information sent out to the public, it will gradually shift perspectives. To this effect, he urged the various stakeholders involved to be bearers of factual information that will help change the perspectives of people in the society.

The meeting that held this February 16, is the second after the creation of the task force. It is hoped that the entire region will be reached through this platform as the regional delegate of communication explained.

“So we thought that if we create a platform like this one, it is through this platformwhich is multisectorial, that will get many sectors in and that will reach the suburbs so that when the people in the suburbs get the message, they can equally go in for vaccines”.