By Binta Jaiteh
Ministry of Health research directorate has released its finding on coronavirus which seeks to find concept of the populace on vaccines and it has linked the surge in cases to vaccine hesitancy.
Speaking to reporters at the Medical Store in Kotu, Sainey Sanneh director of health research said: “a lot of efforts have been put in place by the government as well as our development partners to actually contain the virus and we had a lot of challenges and what made it unique is that it is the first time across the globe that this type of disease is experience.”
“Therefore, it was very challenging to put off the spread of the virus. And now a development country like ours will also have a very difficult challenge to control it,” he said. What also makes it very difficult is that within the short period of time global efforts were put in to bring vaccine and they are one of the most important strategic measures to mitigate the solution.
According to him, due to The Gambia cultures and norms which are sometimes barriers to accepting new interventions or new activities, adding that “as a country when the first consignment of vaccine arrived in the country the Ministry in partnership with a lot of partners put in place some intervention to sensitize the public about its arrival and the advantage.”
He applauded world Bank for funding the activity and support from other partners locally and Internationally and Ministry of Health promoters while disclosed that the aim of the study is to have a good understanding of what people think of the vaccine in accepting the vaccine and the reason for not,” he added.
Babanding Sabally, director of pharmaceutical services, also said the vaccines alongside other are all combined to fight against the disease. He added that the vaccines development went through series of phases from clinical trial to clinical trial phase 1 and others to make sure that they are safe and efficacious to the people that it is administered to.
