By Kelly rwamapera
Health authorities in the Rubavu border community rank the public vaccination of local officials as one of the great mechanisms for removing misinformation and disinformation about Covid-19 that engulfed the public even before the vaccines arrived.
Dr Oneste Tuganeyezu told ABASIRWA Health Reporters in January 2023 that there was much misinformation and disinformation and that even countering it with correct information was too challenging.
“It became necessary that public officials had to take the lead in getting vaccinated against Covid-19 in public. The system worked for us more than any other thing in fighting misinformation and disinformation about Covid vaccines” he said.
He added that most people in the border community had already been fed with wrong information that the vaccine would either paralyse them or make them turn into beasts.
“There was much wrong information about the jabs, way before the vaccines came. The only way to confirm to our people that the vaccine was safe and effective, was to have public officials get vaccinated under the watch of the people they led,” so that they could trust the vaccines”
Clementine Mukamugoyi, a local trader who used to cross the border to the neighbouring DR Congo told Intego News that he was one of the people who were not ready to get vaccinated.
“Many videos were circulating in WhatsApp groups where one would be vaccinated and turn into a goat or a strange beast. I’m one of the people who feared taking the vaccine” she said.
Mukamugoyi explained that even when local authorities in Rubavu Town set an example by being publicly vaccinated, he was still hesitant and waited a few days to see what became of the vaccinated.
“I was perplexed: on one hand, I felt I had to get the jab to protect me from infection as a cross-border trader but on the other hand, I feared the vaccine. Had it not been for the example of our leaders, I would take much longer without being vaccinated”
Rwanda is one of the countries in Africa with more than high Covid vaccination rates at 73 per cent fully vaccinated, according to official figures.
Rubavu District was one of the districts that faced Covid infection challenges due to cross-border trade with the border communities in the neighbouring DR Congo whose people remained vaccine-hesitant.
DRCongo has vaccinated less than 10 per cent, according to official data.
In May 2021 when Nyiragongo Volcano erupted, over 3500 people from Goma flocked into Rwanda during the time of Covid pandemic.
The district authorities told ABASIRWA Health Reporters that it was a challenging time of increased covid infections which led to a lockdown immediately after the displaced people went back to Goma.
