By Binta Jaiteh
Sidat Fofana, expanded programme officer at the Ministry of Health has said it is only 10 per cent of the country’s population vaccinated against coronavirus.
“People think that this is a ploy to reduce and tamper with the population but that is not the issue we will not give any vaccine that will be harmful to our own people. Partners like WHO, UNICEF and other stakeholders are funding us and providing all the necessary equipments needed to carry out this exercise. They are standing with us to make sure this work fine,” he said.
Currently, he said, there are three types of vaccines in the country and they are very effective, saying “we have people with preexisting conditions and diabetes. The tourism sector is weak our economy is cripple so we need to take these vaccines so that this virus can be eradicated.”
“As we all know Covid-19 crisis has affected our way of living globally adding and the only way to tackle this deadly disease is by taking the vaccine,” he explained.
He said the ministry’s main issue is hesitancy people are spreading false information and discouraging people from taking the vaccine as a result of that people stay behind and refuse to be vaccinated.
Mbaye Njie, senior surveillance EPI also said that around the 18th of last month the Minister declared and outbreak of polio a disease that affect children. The outbreak was not detected from human being but from environmental samples.
‘’We are working hard to make sure that the response, to this outbreak have a lot of documentation and response to vaccinate children that are under 5 years with the polio vaccine. The vaccine we using is not the routine immunization services but the novel OPV which means is a vaccine produce to fight this particular polio that is circulating in the sub region not only Gambia even Senegal is battling with it since 2020,” he disclosed.