By Nyima Sillah
Teachers have been urged to go get their vaccine in order to curb further spread, protect themselves and their school children from coronavirus infection as schools reopened.
Speaking to The Voice Gibril Gando Baldeh Senior Health Communications Officer said “the Ministry of Health is collaborating with partners to make sure that teachers prioritize the situation as far as prevention is concern.”
“School going children mostly those under 18 years in The Gambia are not allow to be vaccinated as of now. So, if a teacher is not vaccinated it is at high risk of spreading the virus which the students can also go home and infect their most vulnerable people like elderly people with comorbidity,” he added.
He continued that “vaccination is the only way to help stop the spread of the virus especially among school going children,” adding that “evidence has shown that since schools reopened in many countries, they have seen a surge in number of cases among young children who mostly are not protected through the vaccine.”
According to him Ministry of Health has plan in place just in case teachers or schools request vaccination the Mobile team will be sent to make sure that these teachers in these schools are fully vaccinated. So, it is really in plans to ensure that teachers are vaccinated, he explained.
“As we speak, the percentage of teachers since the starting of the vaccination that have been vaccinated is around 20-24% which is still on the low side we expect to have at least 70-75% percent of teachers in this country to be vaccinated because the country is targeting to vaccinate 60% of the general population. As of now, we have only vaccinated hundred and seventy-one thousand people, this represent around 11% of our target population and teachers 64% of them are already vaccinated among this hundred and seventy-one people that are vaccinated.
“So, meaning there are lots of teachers out there who are yet to receive their vaccination so we are appealing to them to come forward to get vaccinated and make sure that we also prevent the virus from the schools and classes,” he said.
