Awareness creation on benefits of vaccines will enhance public confidence – GHS

Government says a sure way to sustain vaccine confidence in Ghana is to enhance community engagement and education activities to create awareness on its benefits.

This should be coupled with strengthening the National Misinformation Taskforce to monitor conversations that may influence vaccine uptake and develop strategies to address rumors.

Data by the Ghana Health Service suggest that Ghana has demonstrated commitment to improve its public health system to promptly detect and respond to infectious diseases and promoting preventative measures. However, concerns about the safety of vaccines and fear of negative side effects are major barriers to vaccine confidence.

There is a lack of trust in vaccines, which contributes to hesitancy due to rumours and myths propagated by anti-vaxers. And Religious and spiritual beliefs also influence vaccine confidence.

Delivering a presentation on Strengthening Public Health Systems and Sustaining Vaccine Confidence in Ghana, at a webinar on Strengthening Vaccine Communication in Ghana, Director of Public Health at the Ghana Health Service, Dr Franklyn Asiedu Bekoe noted that a resilient public health system builds the necessary trust to achieve high vaccination coverage.

‘‘Ghana’s public health system strengthening requires multi-faceted approach including increasing funding and investing in infrastructure and reorienting services toward primary and preventive care.

We have a task force which is very sensitive to the issues and the rumors that go about. We also need to make sure that we collaborate a lot with the FDA because you see people have their doubts about whether the FDA is the right kind of regulatory authority to ensure the safety of the vaccines.

So vaccine confidence is actually the trust people have in government recommended vaccines and the issue is that what the vaccine is going to do to our children. So we need to use community leaders/ influencers as vaccine champions to communicate and respond to concerns around vaccines.

So it’s good the media is here to help us achieve that’’ he said.

Improving vaccine confidence among the population through targeted messaging, community engagement, prompt address of rumors and myths, etc. the service believe will increase vaccine uptake in Ghana.

Source: 3news.com