By Emmanuel Yokoniya

Lilongwe, MANA. Center for Human Rights and Rehabilitation (CHRR) in conjunction with Malawi Union for the Blind (MUB) have embarked on translating Covid-19 vaccination awareness materials into braille in order to improve covid-19 vaccine uptake in the country.

CHRR’S Executive Director Michael Kaiyatsa said this interview when commenting on the role of Civil Society Organizations (CSO) in advocating for covid-19 vaccine uptake among citizenry.

Kaiyatsa said the initiative aims at bridging the existence awareness gap concerning covid-19 vaccine amongst marginalized people such as those with visual impairment, and deaf in order to protect this group of people from the pandemic.

He certainly said that the initiative will facilitate in improvement of covid-19 vaccine uptake as this minority group of people will easily digest and grasp the awareness messages.

“as inclusion has proven to be a paramount weapon in fight against the pandemic, we thought it wise to engage the marginalized people like those with disabilities in this fight in order to improve the uptake because the higher the people vaccinated the less the pandemic threat” he said

According to Ministry of Health’s covid-19 daily update as of November 23, 2022, shows that 3,089,527 people got fully vaccinated which represents 15% of the targeted 70% of national population,

Among other interventions CHRR has engaged community stakeholders such as District Health Office (DHO), Covid committee and traditional leaders in debarking myths, and misinformation bordering the vaccine and the pandemic at large in order to mobilize community members to take covid-19 jab.

Malawi registered its first Covid-19 case on 02 April 2020 which was imported from India and so far the pandemic has claimed 88, 029 lives across the country.

In a separate interview Health Rights activist, George Jobe has commended CHRR for the initiative by saying this is a game changer in battle against the pandemic.

Jobe however asked other CSO to follow suit in mobilization campaign to improve Covid -19 vaccine uptake among citizenry in an attempt to create Covid free environment.

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