Africa-Press – Tanzania. MEDIA practitioners have been urged to continue educating the public on the importance of Covid -19 vaccine as key stakeholders in communicating information to the society.
The call was made in Dar es Salaam yesterday by Tanzania Editors Forum (TEF) Chairman, Mr Deodatus Balile during a meeting between reporters and editors organized by TEF and the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) with the aim of deliberating various issues related to COVID-19 vaccine.
Mr Balile said that journalists should take the issue of COVID 19 vaccine seriously by making sure that they get vaccinated due to the nature of their work, which include different various people.
“Vaccines do not prevent death, but rather they provide protection by reducing the severity of the pandemic if a person contracts the disease, thus reducing the risk of dying from the viral disease,” he said.
On his side, Dr Florian Tinuga from the Ministry of Health, Community Development, Gender, Elderly and Children said so far COVID-19 vaccine doses have been distributed to at least 6784 authorized health facilities in the country.
“We have so far vaccinated 1.2 million people, equivalent to 2.11 per cent of our population, and we have set to vaccinate at least 60 per cent of the population so as to free the country from the pandemic,” Dr Florian said.
He noted that so far there was no negative effects detected from the vaccines, which means that they are safe to protect people from the pandemic.
Muhimbili University of Health and Allied Sciences (MUHAS) Prof Deodatus Kakoko said that myths and corruption surrounding COVID -19 vaccine has been holding back the effort towards attaining national target of vaccinated people.
“These myths are psychological where they are already in people’s minds, it is not easy to change people’s mind, but the only way is to comprehend that these myths are not empirical and there is no proof of their truth” said Prof Kakoko.
“People claim it is the western’s plan to decrease the population, some say it is a plan to cut down the number of Africans while others claim the vaccines are magnetic and they have microchip, or even claiming that the vaccines destruct reproductive organs,” he added.
He called on journalists and other stakeholders to offer information to educate the society about COVID -19 in general.
UNICEF Communication Specialist, Usia Nkhoma in her brief remarks thanked the Editor’s Forum for hosting this meeting and emphasized the need for the media to continue educating the public about the pandemic.
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