More effort needed for jabs

MORE effort needs to be put into increasing Papua New Guinea’s vaccination coverage next year, National Pandemic Response deputy controller Dr Daoni Esorom says.
He said this when responding to questions by The National last week on whether the Government had done enough to increase the vaccination coverage and how much money had been spent on the Coronavirus (Covid-19) awareness and vaccination programmes so far.
Dr Esorom said with challenges, including misinformation, leading to vaccine hesitancy and availability and access, vaccinations had been slow. “We expected the ministerial committee (in charge of the vaccination) to go in a big way to do mass communication, train frontline health workers and have boots on the ground making sure people were educated on the benefits of the vaccine and the side effects, myths and a lot of things to do with the vaccine,” he said.
Dr Esorom said the Health Department and development partners would provide details on funds expanded on awareness and the vaccination programme.