“We Wait Future Guidelines On The Vaccination Of Children”

The 2021/2022 academic year is here and the Covid-19 pandemic still lingers on. What is your department doing to intensify the fight against the pandemic?
The fight against Covid-19 continues with the national policy on the respect of barrier measures, hand hygiene and physical distancing. Furthermore, since 12 April, 2021, a nationwide vaccination against Covid-19 was launched through the EIP. Today, everyone 18 years and above without a contradiction (allergy, or to some extend: pregnancy or breastfeeding) is continuously encouraged to get one of the available vaccines in the country to ensure an adequate protection against the disease. Given the increased transmission risk that may present in school settings, in addition to the vaccination campaigns carried out in the community in the past weeks, the EIP is encouraging vaccination of teachers and all school officials alongside all students 18 years and above and other visitors to school facilities to limit Covid-19 in schools. More vaccination centres are being set up all over the country to get vaccines closer to the population. Also, more sessions to intensify Covid-19 vaccination in the community are envisaged in the days ahead.

Many people are not adhering to the vaccination against Covid-19. What are you doing to encourage the population to accept the vaccine?
From the onset of Covid-19 vaccine rollout in Cameroon, these vaccines have been made available to the population all over the national territory regardless of their geographic location, sex, sociopolitical or economic status. This was followed by two rounds of intensification of vaccination activities with interpersonal communication in enterprises, religious institutions and even door-to-door in the community. This rapidly helped to increase the number of vaccine doses administered to more than 440,000. At this point, communication through various media and organizations is being carried out to reduce vaccine hesitance. It is of course realized that more and more persons freely visit the various vaccination sites on daily basis to get their dose in recent days. The program looks forward to intensify vaccination activities in a couple of weeks ahead to further improve vaccine uptake. 

Studies show that children less than 18 years are also carriers of the Covid-19 virus. Is the vaccination of children against Covid-19 previewed or imminent in Cameroon?
Yes, data suggest that Covid-19 infectio...