By Awa Sowe
To bring the COVID-19 pandemic to an end a large share of the world needs to be immune to the virus. The safest way to achieve this is with a vaccine. For The Gambia to strengthen its response to the COVID- 19 pandemic, as well as scale up its vaccination promotion, to be able to implement Government’s National COVID-19 Preparedness and Response Plan, the ministry of Health(MOH), in collaboration partners, will today, Monday, 9th May begin a countrywide vaccination campaign that end 15th May 2022.
The Vaccine Campaign is in line with the African Union’s commitment to vaccinate 60% of the continent’s population by the end of June 2022.
The campaign is also in fulfillment of the World Health Organisation’s (WHO) global vision of scaling the vaccination coverage in all countries to 40% by end of this year. This mass immunisation will take the form of setting up and distributing vaccination sites in all communities base on the size of settlements.
The Director of Health Promotion and Education, Mr Modou Njai explained that the objective of this vaccination campaign is to vaccinate everybody, young and old people including children aged 12 years and above.
He said vaccination teams together with social mobilizers will be deployed to all sites and public places such as ‘bantabas’ , schools, markets, crossing point and other strategic locations in all communities in the country.
Currently, he intimated, the country has three different types of vaccines; namely: Johnson & Johnson, Pfizer, and Sinopharm, all of which are safe and effective in preventing severe COVID-19 infection, hospitalisation and death.
Mr Njai went to explain that the campaign will target eligible populations through vaccination and registration in each outlet. During the campaign, vaccination cards will be issued to any person that gets the jab. The card will serve as a vaccine passport; especially for people traveling to counties requiring proof of valid COVID-19 Vaccine,
According to the Director those that are fully vaccinated can take a Pfizer dose as a boaster shot to help people maintain strong protection from severe corona virus disease.
“COVID-19 is still with us,” said Mr Modou Njai . “We all need to get vaccinated to break the cycle of transmission. The vaccines are safe and effective and are available. I encourage people to get vaccinated so that we can live our lives as we used to.”
Njai used the opportunity to urge the general public to unite and come out in their numbers and take the vaccines to be able to overcome this devastating public health threat.
It could be recalled that the Gambia Registered its first COVID-19 case on March 17th 2020 .The pandemic constitutes an unprecedented global health and economic crisis with detrimental and long-lasting socio-economic impacts. Since then the Government of The Gambia and partners hugely invested in Vaccines, Personal Protective Equipment (PPEs), Ambulances etc to curb the spread of the pandemic.
The disease spread from person to person through infected air droplets that are projected during sneezing or coughing. It can also be transmitted when humans have contact with hands or surfaces that contain the virus and touch their eyes, nose or mouth with contaminated hands
