AU, others woo youths to boost COVID-19 vaccination by 70% in Africa

African Union (AU) has collaborated with Trace TV to engage the creative community in pushing its Bingwa Initiative geared at increasing COVID-19 vaccination across Africa by 70 per cent in 2023.
   
The programme, which is also in partnership with the African Centre for Disease Control (CDC), GIZ and MasterCard, has public figures and social media influencers like The Pamilerin, Jenni Frank, Nigerian singer, Chike and comedian, Pencil, among others engaged to promote COVID-19 vaccination championed by African youths.

“The initiative is a public-private youth initiative driven by our partnerships, which include UNICEF, MasterCard Foundation, GIZ, Trace TV, Meta, TikTok and One Campaign,” she added.

In his remarks, Senior Technical Officer for Strategic Programmes, Africa CDC executive office, Chrys Promesse Kaniki, said the continent’s 20.2 per cent rate is the lowest in the world. He submitted that young people are the gateway to the larger community and have an abundance of innovation and creativity to ensuring that the 70 per cent target is met.
   
“The Binigwa Initiative should be owned by local communities. A coalition of youths, media influencers and religious leaders must be mobilised to promote the initiative,” Kaniki said.
   
On his part, Trace Anglophone West Africa’s Head of Music and Broadcast, Lanre Masha, noted that COVID-19 had become topical, regretting that misinformation about the disease’s side effects had kept people from getting vaccinated. 
   
He stated that having the right information and seamless access to vaccines would increase vaccination rates in Africa and check the spread of the virus and accompanying mortalities.