Patience and time needed to combat vaccine hesitancy in Papua New Guinea
Julius Nohu, from Caritas, explains how coordinating with health workers and taking the time to listen to communities can help increase vaccine uptake in PNG.
Australian Humanitarian Partnership (AHP) NGOs have been supporting the COVID-19 response in Papua New Guinea (PNG) since the pandemic was declared in 2020. Current response efforts are focused on addressing widespread misinformation that has hampered PNG’s COVID-19 vaccine roll-out, leaving many unprotected from COVID-19.
Faith-based messaging delivered locally and shared nationally
AHP partner, the Church Agencies Network – Disaster Operations (CAN DO) in partnership with ABC International Development, is focused on working with Provincial Health Authority staff, religious leaders and communities to address mis-information surrounding COVID-19 vaccines through a theological approach. This will be followed be a mass media campaign so that information can be shared with a national audience.
The theological approach of this element of the AHP response builds on work undertaken through the Australian Government-funded Disaster READY program , also implemented through the AHP. The theological approach within Disaster READY involves embedding disaster risk management information within a theological context, reflecting and responding to the central role that faith plays in communities across the Pacific region.
Multimedia content was collected during the community sessions and will be used to produce public service announcements to be distributed via PNG’s national broadcaster, NBC. The national campaign will share common COVID-19 vaccine-related questions asked during the community sessions and the answers provided. The intention is to build trust in COVID-19 vaccine messaging and to emphasise the importance of seeking information and asking questions of the right people, not relying on information shared on social media.
Alignment with the GoPNG’s vaccination campaign
CAN DO and ABC International Development designed the community sessions to complement the GoPNG Sleeves Up campaign, which the PNG Council of Churches publicly announced their support for, an important step in bringing the churches in PNG behind the national vaccine roll-out.
However, it was still important for CAN DO and ABC International Development to ensure that all those involved in delivering the community sessions were in agreement on vaccine-related messaging to avoid adding to any community confusion and mis-information.
Dialogue is key to addressing vaccine questions and queries
Disaster Hub Manager with Caritas in PNG, Julius Nohu, is coordinating the CAN DO component of the AHP COVID-19 PNG response. He explained how the interactive community sessions were purposely designed to allow for discussion, or two-way communication, with communities as this was proving to be the most effective way to counter mis-information.
“In the earlier phase of the COVID-19 response, we distributed information materials and held public awareness sessions on COVID-19, but now we are focused on interactive sessions so that they are more two-way. This means that we sit and listen to people’s concerns and answer their questions around COVID-19 and the vaccines,” Julius explained.
“We are finding these interactive sessions are more effective, particularly when addressing mis-information and even conspiracy theories. But they take a lot of time. ABC International Development has been with the teams throughout the delivery of those interactive sessions, creating multimedia content and documenting those sessions with the idea that from the multimedia content, they will disseminate widely via NBC as a way of reaching the entire population,” he said.
Leaders must be unified behind vaccine messaging
Before CAN DO and ABC International Development began the interactive sessions in the communities, it became evident that work was required to bring community leaders, including faith leaders and health workers, together to agree on the information to be shared in relation to the COVID-19 vaccines.
“Different churches were involved, and sometimes there were different perspectives on vaccines. So we workshopped key messages with the churches to ensure we were all in agreement on the key messages before we went out into the communities.
“It was also very evident that there was division among the health officers themselves and there was division among the church leaders in relation to the vaccine, so our approach was to work with these community leaders and influencers before going out to the communities,” Julius said.
CAN DO and ABC International Development brought representatives from 42 church partners together with Provincial Health Authority staff to agree on the messaging and format of the community sessions.
This was a critical step as the church and health workers, the majority of whom live locally and are seen as leaders in their communities, needed to be united in their stance on the vaccines and the messages that would be shared with communities in the interactive sessions.
“The pastors were teaming up with the doctors and community health workers that manage the health facilities and they were going out together as a team …the health workers brought the vaccines with them, at the end of some of those sessions they were able to vaccinate some people on the spot following the community sessions,” Julius said.
Next steps
At the time of writing, almost all of the planned community sessions had been completed and ABC International Development was in the process of finalising the national media campaign, which is projected to reach over half a million people across the country.
More information on work being undertaken by AHP partners to address vaccine hesitancy in PNG can be found in this Targeting vaccine hesitancy in Papua New Guinea update on the the AHP COVID-19 Resource Centre.
