Briefing journalists in Blantyre on Tuesday, the organization’s Communications and Resource Mobilisation Specialist Felix Washoni said the project comes as the country is grappling to meet targets it set at the onset of the vaccination exercise in the country.

“As you are aware covid 19 jabs have been engulfed by a lot of myths and misconceptions such that many people until now have not yet gone for vaccination. We would like to engage the media closely so that they can disseminate right information about covid 19 vaccination to increase the uptake,” Washoni said.

Health Promotions Officer for Blantyre District Health Office (DHO) Wongani Mbale said they have only managed to vaccinate 15.2 percent of clients lamenting that most people out of the 1.3 million population that came for vaccination, only received only one dose of the Covid-19 vaccine.

“The main challenge we face as Blantyre DHO is vaccine hesitancy. People are not coming forward to have covid-19 vaccination,” Mbale lamented.

Mbale believes that the social mobilisation project by MRCS will assist them to vaccinate 50 percent and 70 percent against the pandemic which are set targets by December this year and end of November 2023 respectively. 

The Africa CDC through Botswana Red Cross Society is funding the project to a tune of K582 million.

(BY Mathias Mkupasha)