Passionate changemakers from the different states in Nigeria join forces with Youth Opportunity and Transformation in Africa (YOTA) and Restless Development to unravel the rationale behind COVID-19 vaccine hesitancy in Nigerian communities.
Twenty four (24) members of the Nigerian Youth Task Team together with vibrant youths from nine (9) other African countries, all part of the Africa Youth Partnership are tirelessly working to emancipate their respective countries from the gross economic effect of the COVID-19 pandemic.
“Evidence from studies carried out by United States Centre For Disease Control (US-CDC) in collaboration with the Nigerian Government shows that less than half (44%) of respondents were willing to get vaccinated,” said Baliquees Salaudeen, the Nigerian Youth Task Team Lead while addressing advocates during a Twitter Space chat organized by the team.
Another member of the task team, Esther Okonmah while emphasizing the need to scale up COVID-19 vaccination said, “According to a recent global pediatric health report, Nigeria will likely fall short of its COVID-19 vaccination target of 70% by 2022 due to massive hesitancy.”
A citizen hesitancy study carried out between January 2020 and December 2021 with the use of Pubmed(10 articles with 9287 individuals) and an enhanced database suggests that the capacity of healthcare providers to counter anti-vaccine and anti-science myths and arguments at all levels must be enhanced because distrust is established at critical levels In various communities, such fallacies must be debunked continuously to increase vaccine acceptance and uptake.
The youth task team has launched a change.org petition in a bid to ensure equal distribution of vaccines and to pull down the biases in vaccine distribution,”The internet has increased the audience of the anti-vaccine Movement, this is why the Nigerian Youth Task Team is also using the internet for pro-vaccine advocacy,” said Fwangshak Ishaku, a member of the task team.
The Nigerian Youth Task Team simultaneously launched a Change.org petition to secure the future of the Nigerian Child by demanding that the government equip 75% of Nigerian Primary and Secondary Schools with ICT infrastructure for 21st Century Learning.
