{"id":72786,"date":"2021-08-21T10:00:10","date_gmt":"2021-08-21T08:00:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/southafricatoday.net\/africa-news\/central-africa\/congo\/coronavirus-botswana-learning-from-botswanas-covid-19-vaccine-rollout\/"},"modified":"2021-08-21T10:00:11","modified_gmt":"2021-08-21T08:00:11","slug":"coronavirus-botswana-learning-from-botswanas-covid-19-vaccine-rollout","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/southafricatoday.net\/africa-news\/central-africa\/congo\/coronavirus-botswana-learning-from-botswanas-covid-19-vaccine-rollout\/","title":{"rendered":"Coronavirus – Botswana: Learning from Botswana's COVID-19 vaccine rollout"},"content":{"rendered":"

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Africa\u2019s largest-ever vaccination drive is well underway.52 African countries are\u00a0rolling out COVID-19 vaccines\u00a0and over 73 million doses have been administered on the continent.<\/p>\n<\/p>\n

With WHO support, Botswana is one of four African countries that have completed an\u00a0intra action review\u00a0of their early COVID-19 vaccine rollout to help shape the next phase.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe aim was to spot challenges and best practices so we can keep customising our rollout. It helped us take quick corrective measures and improve our services,\u201d says Dr Malebogo Kebabonye, Director of Health Services at Botswana\u2019s Ministry of Health and Wellness.<\/p>\n

Rigorous planning<\/strong><\/p>\n

Botswana\u2019s National Vaccine Deployment Plan was ready a month before the first vaccines arrived in late March. The country conducted surveys to gauge public perceptions around vaccinations and set up a national \u2018ArmReady\u2019 information campaign to prepare the public.<\/p>\n

\u201cOur national deployment plan was sanctioned at the level of the Cabinet Office. The surveys showed 76% acceptance of the vaccination among the public. Through the \u2018ArmReady\u2019 campaign, we also sought to pre-empt small pockets of resistance,\u201d says Dr Kebabonye.<\/p>\n

\u201cOur first phase, aiming to reach 264 000, is about protecting the health system. The second is to ensure continued economic activity. The final phase will target 18-29 year olds.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n

Botswana had received 473 000 doses of the AstraZeneca-Covishield, Pfizer and Sinovac vaccines by early July and by then had given first doses to 150 000 people, around one tenth of the country\u2019s adult population. This included 70% of all health workers and 60% of people aged over 55.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cMulti sectoral involvement and coordination from the Presidential Task Force and the Ministry of Health were key. We appointed liaison offices at the national and sub-national levels and used community centres as vaccination sites. This helped communities to take ownership,\u201d Dr Kebabonye explains.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cWe piloted our rollout at a number of sites first, and then grew them out based on the capacity we had. Given the supply issues, this snowballing approach has been very handy.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n

Covering all bases<\/strong><\/p>\n

Crucially, Botswana planned for a range of scenarios and challenges before the rollout began, including uncertainty around the supply of vaccines.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cWe\u2019re really urging African countries to plan for multiple scenarios, just like Botswana did,\u201d says Chanda Chikwanda, who leads WHO Africa\u2019s Vaccines Learning Agenda, which helps\u00a0share lessons between African countries\u00a0to strengthen the rollout of vaccines.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cWe need to be flexible, depending on how the vaccine responses are going and on whether vaccines arrive on time. There are so many possible scenarios, so flexibility is imperative.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n

Good financing, including resource mobilization, as well as constant monitoring and evaluation tools based on good data collection all strengthened Botswana\u2019s early rollout.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cCountries that put an emphasis on resource mobilization have shown themselves to be best placed to do well.\u00a0Eswatini\u00a0secured enough funds to vaccinate its entire population and Rwanda,\u00a0Angola\u00a0and\u00a0Ghana\u00a0all invested in cold chain capacities early,\u201d says Chikwanda.\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cWe must also get to the hard-to-reach groups, including mobile populations and people living in faraway areas. Lesotho used the flying doctors to reach remote communities.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n

Challenges\u00a0<\/strong><\/p>\n

According to Dr Kebabonye, the squeeze on supplies of vaccines has also served to push up public distrust in Botswana\u2019s vaccine rollout.<\/p>\n

A level of vaccine hesitancy was also found among some younger health workers, which was compounded by the\u00a0spread of misinformation\u00a0on and offline.<\/p>\n

Like many countries, Botswana has faced challenges in ensuring enough vaccinators, nurses and health professionals and support staff are on hand.<\/p>\n

Equipment shortages and low internet bandwidth in some areas has hampered the use of the electronic data systems that track the administration of vaccines and adverse effects.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe\u2019ve expanded the knowledge we share with our healthcare workers and communities around [any potential] adverse effects, including on assessing and managing side effects,\u201d says Dr Kebabonye.<\/p>\n

Constant learning<\/strong><\/p>\n

When asked for advice for other African countries, Dr Kebabonye cites an incremental and agile approach, with a strong emphasis on consistent testing and learning.<\/p>\n

\u201cThese reviews, like the one we ran in April with WHO, need to be continuous processes that all countries do to keep on improving,\u201d said Dr Kebabonye.<\/p>\n

Nine more African countries recently expressed interest in conducting similar reviews.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u00a0\u201cWe\u2019re learning as we go to some extent with this new virus and unprecedented vaccination drive,\u201d said Dr Phionah Atuhebwe, New Vaccines Introduction Officer with the World Health Organization\u2019s (WHO) Africa Regional Office.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt is crucial that we keep a close, sharp eye on progress and that we share lessons between countries. This way we all improve our COVID-19 vaccine rollout together.\u201d<\/p>\n

Distributed by APO Group on behalf of WHO Regional Office for Africa.<\/i><\/p>\n

Source<\/a>
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South Africa Today Africa \u2013 Central Africa Congo<\/a> News<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Download logo Africa\u2019s largest-ever vaccination drive is well underway.52 African countries are\u00a0rolling out COVID-19 vaccines\u00a0and over 73 million doses have been administered on the continent. With WHO support, Botswana is one of four African countries that have completed an\u00a0intra action review\u00a0of their early COVID-19 vaccine rollout to help shape the next phase. \u201cThe aim was […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":7,"featured_media":72787,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"tdm_status":"","tdm_grid_status":"","fifu_image_url":"https:\/\/southafricatoday.net\/africa-news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/05\/e2859b55e2c1585.jpeg","fifu_image_alt":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[8377],"tags":[258,256,4718,39630,4696,4554,8378,8379,8381,32489,32926,6753,257,18095,254,13567,8380],"class_list":["post-72786","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-congo","tag-africa","tag-africa-news","tag-botswana","tag-botswana039s","tag-central-africa","tag-congo","tag-congo-news","tag-congo-republic","tag-congo-brazzaville","tag-coronavirus","tag-covid19","tag-learning","tag-news","tag-rollout","tag-south-africa-today","tag-vaccine","tag-west-congo"],"fifu_image_url":"https:\/\/southafricatoday.net\/africa-news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/05\/e2859b55e2c1585.jpeg","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/southafricatoday.net\/africa-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/72786","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/southafricatoday.net\/africa-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/southafricatoday.net\/africa-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/southafricatoday.net\/africa-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/7"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/southafricatoday.net\/africa-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=72786"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/southafricatoday.net\/africa-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/72786\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/southafricatoday.net\/africa-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/72787"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/southafricatoday.net\/africa-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=72786"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/southafricatoday.net\/africa-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=72786"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/southafricatoday.net\/africa-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=72786"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}