World News

PNG trapped among COVID and vaccine skeptics in pandemic fight | Coronavirus pandemic News

[ad_1]

International concerns are mounting as COVID-19 continues to spread in vaccine-free Papua New Guinea (PNG), where, according to the Our World in Data website, only 1.7 percent of the population has been vaccinated.

The vaccination rate remains extremely low, despite adequate vaccine supply and support from the Australian government and international organizations. Red Cross.

The slow adoption has been partly due to the government’s poor message and proliferation misinformation on social media via mobile phones.

“There is a lot of misinformation that is largely circulating on social media,” said Jane Holden, acting director general of the Western Highlands Provincial Health Authority for Al Jazeera.

While the wrong social media posts about COVID-19 vaccines have hurt nations around the world, including Australia. anti-vaccine rallies – Holden says that a key problem in Papua New Guinea is the lack of access to factual media messages.

“He has more access to social media than anyone who can listen to the radio or read the newspapers or watch TV,” he said. “So their phones are very important, and people are reading a lot of misinformation on their phones.”

Holden says misinformation is not necessarily just a belief in conspiracy theories, but a misunderstanding of how the vaccine works.

“People say ‘don’t get vaccinated because you can still get COVID, so what is it.’

The multi-national population, which is home to more than 700 language groups, poses many challenges for health administrators; not only the lack of mountainous land and reliable means of transportation, but also the low level of formal education and existing health challenges such as HIV, tuberculosis and low life expectancy.

Papua New Guinea Prime Minister James Marape received the AstraZeneca vaccine in March, but many citizens, due to misinformation on social media, are still not convinced that it is worth starting. [File: Gorethy Kenneth/AFP]

Holden told Al Jazeera that despite the fact that the region in which his team operates has decent roads, “we have some places that are difficult for the team to reach.

“We think we can go by road, sometimes we can’t get there, so we have to organize people to direct the rivers and then take another vehicle somehow from the other side and then move on.”

“There are challenges to really get to the villages or the people who live in the villages, of course, to reach out to us.”

Building trust

In the small town of Kuntika, in the remote Western Highlands, community leader Eric Eribiang recently managed to supervise the vaccine of 72 people.

He agrees that the confusing social media posts have raised doubts about the vaccine.

“Now with social media, people have access to the Internet,” Al Jazeera said.

“So there are mixed feelings about people posting negative things about the vaccine. The truth is, people don’t get the right message because of propaganda.”

This “propaganda” includes messages on western social media that the vaccine is a conspiracy to make people sick, along with anti-vaccine messages spread by some local church groups.

However, Eribiang says the situation of being the son of a leader and a community leader was essential to informing the importance of vaccines.

“As the son of the principal, I am able to influence the province and speak and direct,” he said.

Eribiang has partnered with the Western Highlands Health Service to administer Kuntika vaccines, and the initiative has so far helped keep COVID-19 remote in a remote community of less than 1,000 people. About half of them are under the age of 18 and do not yet have the right to vaccinate under the country’s vaccination program.

He says the key to building trust around vaccine and coronavirus education is to have the right people to do the job.

“Raising awareness and educating the public is an important task but at the same time you need to have the right people for that,” he said.

“People who have an impact on society and who can catch their eye. It’s better to come to another place and try to raise awareness. “

West Highlands Health Service staff are vaccinating COVID-19 in Mount Hagen [Courtesy of Jane Holden/WHHS]

Former Australian High Commissioner to Papua New Guinea Ian Kemish says the problem is part of a wider sub-investment in health services across the country of nine million people.

Despite its rich resources, Human Rights Watch states that 80% of the population lives in rural areas and 40% live in poverty to cope with challenges such as domestic violence and tribal warfare. Traditional beliefs, including witchcraft, remain ingrained.

The human rights group said in April 2020 – the start of the pandemic – that the country had only 500 doctors, fewer than 4,000 nurses and only about 5,000 beds in hospitals and health centers.

“The PNG government has made little investment in the health care system for a long time,” Kemish said. “PNG is the country with the fastest growth in population since gaining independence in 1975, so health services have not continued. So the country is already starting to chase. ”

Kemish added that Papua New Guinea is following a worldwide trend in which vaccination is low in countries with low government commitment and low government confidence.

He says, “on the one hand, among countries with low vaccination rates and relatively low confidence or commitment to government, on the other.”

However, this low commitment is exacerbated in Papua New Guinea, where the government “is not very present in people’s lives,” he said.

“People live far away. However, Papua New Guinea has access to Facebook via mobile phones, ”he said.

He is also the president of the Kemish Kokoda Track Foundation, a charity based in Papua New Guinea.

The group recently worked with the UNICEF children’s agency and the Papua New Guinea Department of Health to vaccinate the small mountain town of Kokoda.

God

“It’s not the jabs that are scarce, it’s the weapons,” he said.

Dealing with fears

Vaccines have been provided COVAX program and also through donations From countries like Australia.

Medical assistance has also been provided, with teams from the UK and Australia assisting Holden staff at Mount Hagen.

However, Holden fears that people will only appear after the death of COVID-19 to the jab. PNG has reported 415 deaths as a result of the disease, but is battling a new rise in the virus that began last month.

“Certainly, people who die in villages seem to be the driving force behind reducing vaccine doubts,” he said.

Although Papua New Guinea’s health ministry has not responded to Al Jazeera’s comment requests, its website contains information on COVID-19, the pandemic and vaccines.

Australia has provided vaccine supplies to Papua New Guinea, a northern neighbor. The country is also receiving vaccines from the COVAX program and China [File: Andrew Kutan/AFP]
Patients treated at COVID-19 hospital in Port Moresby, the capital of PNG, last month [File: Andrew Kutan/AFP]

Holden and Eribiang say the information should be disseminated more widely not only through social media, but also to people visiting remote areas.

“We need to make sure people know where they need to go to get the information,” Holden said.

“Each of us in the provinces needs to be very, very focused on giving people clear messages and being in the villages, being able to talk to people and try to bring what they are afraid of to the people and bring events. ”

The head of the Eribiang community agrees that spreading the right message is key to preventing a disaster.

“A clear awareness needs to come out, people need to be aware of the events surrounding COVID and the vaccine,” he said.

“Once they get the true story, they can decide for themselves whether to get vaccinated.”



[ad_2]

Source link

Related Articles

Back to top button