Malawi’s Medical Doctors embarks on campaign to dispel myths about Covid-19 vaccines

BLANTYRE-(MaraviPost)—In a bid to woo more Malawians to get vaccinated against Covid-19 epidemic, the Society of Medical Doctors in Malawi has launched a six-month campaign aimed at engaging community members to dispel myths and misconceptions about Covid-19 vaccines.

President for the society, Dr. Victor Mithi, said they have joined the fight after realizing that people, especially in rural settings, show little interest to get vaccinated, a thing he said is frustrating efforts to contain the virus.

Speaking when he launched the initiative in Mchinji yesterday, Dr. Mithi said they intend to closely work with community influencers including religious leaders, chiefs, politicians and community radio stations to ensure they have correct information about Covid-19 and encourage people to get vaccinated.

Malawi became the first country to publicly incinerate expired doses of the AstraZeneca Coronavirus vaccines.

The World Health Organization initially urged countries not to destroy expired doses but has now changed its advice.

Uptake of the vaccine in Malawi has been low and health experts hope the move taken by the Society of Medical Doctors will increase arouse people’s interest to get vaccinated.

Cumulatively, Malawi has recorded 59,399 cases including 2,059 deaths (Case Fatality Rate is at 3.47%). Of these cases, 2,600 are imported infections and 56,799 are locally transmitted. Cumulatively, 45,396 cases have now recovered (recovery rate of 76.4%) and 232 were lost to follow-up. This brings the total number of active cases to 11,712.

On COVID-19 vaccination, a total of 826,184 vaccine doses has been administered in the country so far. Cumulatively 466,948 and 191,901 people have received the first dose and second dose of AstraZeneca vaccine respectively while 167,335 people have received Johnson and Johnson vaccine. 

Maneno Chimulala

I am a journalist, educator, and activist with passion for telling stories about social justice, sports and political issues. I graduated from Mzuzu University. I started my career at the Maravi Post online publication in 2012 as an intern while in college. Upon graduating from Mzuzu University I was offered a job as Sports Reporter because of my background as a goalkeeper and rose to the position of sub editor. I also had a short stint with Nyasatimes, Malawi Punch and Malawi Digest. Over the past seven years, I have worked intimately with rural organizations and communities in Malawi on human rights, girl child education and grassroots development projects. With an academic background in education, I also volunteer as male champion for girls’ education under Girls Empowerment Networks (GENET) in Malawi’s South West Education Division (SWED).