Research conducted by COVPN Ubunthu under UNC Project shows that people are still not interested in the Covid-19 vaccine.
This was revealed on Friday during a media science café in Lilongwe where Journalists Association Against AIDS (JournAIDS) in partnership with AVAC conducted.
Speaking with reporters, UNC Project coordinator Alan Chombe said that although the number of cases has gone down, people are no longer interested to go for Covid-19 vaccine.
He added that the development is due to lack of awareness of the vaccine because some people are still afraid of taking vaccine due to myths that have been spreading since the virus came into the country.
“We cannot stop fight Covid-19 because it has some how reduced but we still have the power to continue fighting the pandemic because the cases are still being reported,” Chombe explained.
In his remarks, Programme Manager for JournAIDS Dingaan Mithi said that they have been implementing an innovative media science café program in Malawi to promote science communication and reporting on Covid-19.
He added that one of the key objectives of the science café is to tackle the infodemic on the Covid-19 vaccine and deliver accurate messages to the public through the media on the benefits and exposing the truth about the vaccine and help reduce vaccine hesitancy.
The media science café is coming at a time when the World Health Organization declared that Covid-19 is no longer a public health emergency of international concern
The 7th media science café focuses on vaccine hesitancy in Malawi.
“This is based on the fact that the country missed the target of vaccinating of its population by June, 2023,” said Mithi.
Vaccine hesitancy is a huge global health threat as mentioned by the World Health Organization (WHO) in the past.
