vaccine Archives - AfricaBusiness.com

Did you know that over three billion messages related to COVID-19 have been sent by governments, non-profits and international organisations to citizens via official WhatsApp chatbots[i]? The South African government was one of the first to harness the power of the platform to share correct, up-to-date COVID-19 information from the National Department of Health, but Kyle Oosthuizen (@KyleOosthuizen), Chief Operating Officer at Blue Robot, the leading provider of socially powered messaging solutions, believes that it – and other tech tools - could be utilised for far more, especially now that vaccines are being opened up to younger generations. He says that while the WhatsApp chatbot is slightly more convenient than government’s COVID-19 resource and news portal, it isn’t adding any new va...

Vaccine hesitancy in many parts of Africa has emerged as a potent threat to efforts to mitigate COVID-19 and could considerably counteract wider move to contain the pandemic, despite significant gains made to control the disease in the continent. There is consensus among a cross-section of health experts from the continent that the fight against COVID-19 must address the pockets of apathy and reluctance that now threaten to derail mitigation of the disease. The World Health Organization (WHO) defines vaccine hesitancy as the delay in acceptance or refusal of vaccines despite availability of vaccine services. Hesitancy is complex and context-specific, varying across time, space and vaccines. “Early evidence from across Africa shows that many are eager to get the vaccine, despite very limite...

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COVID-19 vaccine hesitancy threatens to derail war against pandemic in Africa