Religious leaders’ role on COVID-19 vaccination commended
A survey report on the COVID-19 vaccine hesitancy in the country released by the Christian Health Association of Ghana (CHAG) has revealed that religious leaders were influential in getting their members to vaccinate.
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It attributed the situation in part to the COVID-19 Response and Institutional Capacity Building (CRIB) project, which had extensively engaged religious leaders and employed their services in the COVID-19 education.
"Hence, religious influences that would have otherwise fuelled hesitancy were adequately addressed.”
"Another plausible reason would be that because the churches were closed during lockdown, the religious leaders had active roles to play based on the protocols given to churches as requirements for reopening and conducting church services," the report stated.
The survey was conducted by the Christian Health Association of Ghana (CHAG) under its CRIB and funded by the Foreign Commonwealth and Development Office (FCDO).
The survey, with a sample size of 780, from 39 districts in 15 regions in the country, sought to understand the situation of vaccine hesitancy in the selected districts of the respondents.
Among 169 of respondents, representing 22 per cent, who were still hesitant in vaccinating, only negligible percentage of 0.6 per cent attributed their hesitancy to religious reasons.
riefing the Daily Graphic on the report, the Deputy Executive Director of CHAG, Dr James Duah, added that the vaccines were also sent to churches, with some churches serving as vaccination centres and thus the active involvement of the church and its leaders countered any religious doubts that people may have had.
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He commended the leadership of the various religious bodies for their supportive role, adding that in some churches, the pastors and the priests made announcements and encouraged their members to patronise the COVID vaccines.
He was grateful to the church leaders for their active role in the country's ability to contain the pandemic. Dr Duah also thanked the FCDO for providing funding to enable the CHAG to carry out the CRIB project that made it possible for communities outside of the big cities to get access to COVID information and vaccination.
He explained that the FCDO sought to support the government's response to the COVID-19 through strengthening Ghana's health systems to maintain the delivery of essential healthcare services.
Dr Duah said one area that played a huge role in vaccine hesitancy was social media.
He said of the 169 representing 22 per cent of the people who refused to take the vaccine, 51 of them, representing 30 per cent, said they were influenced by what they heard or saw in social media.
Explaining, he acknowledged that at the peak of the pandemic, the social media were awash with loads of fake information on the pandemic, particularly the vaccines.
He said the situation really affected in no small way the fight against the pandemic.
Also, 22.2 per cent of those who refused to take the vaccine were influenced by family and friends.
Quoting the report, Dr Duah said during the survey, it came to light that an overwhelming 148 of the respondents who refused the vaccine, representing 90 per cent, did so without consulting a medical doctor.
"Only 14 out of the 169 who had not taken the vaccine, did so on the advice of a medical doctor, while seven of them felt medical advice was irrelevant," he added.
Ages
The report observed that among the unvaccinated respondents, 95 of them, representing 56.2 per cent of them, were females, while the remaining were males.
In terms of age grouping, 74 of the unvaccinated, representing 43.8 per cent, were between the 16–29-year age group, while 69 of the unvaccinated representing 40.8 per cent were aged between 30 and 44.
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Seven of the elderly population beyond 60 years representing 4.1 per cent had not taken the COVID vaccines.
Education background
A third of the respondents numbering 51 who did not take the vaccine had tertiary/university education while 40 of the unvaccinated representing 23.7 per cent had some senior high school education.
According to the report, 16 representing one tenth of the 169 did not have any form of education at all.