Older people fear COVID vaccines could make their health conditions worse

Members of the Village Health Team (VHTs) in Makindye Division in Kampala City have said that older citizens in the communities fear COVID-19 vaccines, reasoning that the vaccines might worsen their health problems like high blood pressure, sugar diabetes, heart disease and so on.

The VHTs made this revelation while meeting with a team from the African Medical and Research Foundation (AMREF) at St. Dennis Ssebugwawo, Konge, on Friday, September 16, in effort to work together on strategies to make the communities resume taking all precautions seriously, in order to guard against covid-19.

AMREF is working with VHTs to remind communities that covid-19 is still dangerous at a time when many people assume that the pandemic is over.

“Many older people, in their sixties and above, they don’t like the idea of vaccination yet they are the ones most at risk to die from covid-19. They fear that their comorbidities like pressure, heart diseases and others might get worse if they take the vaccine,” said one VHT.

The VHTs requested the AMREF team to put more effort on sensitization as many people still hold several myths about covid-19 and the vaccines against it.

The AMREF officials urged the VHTs to emphasize the importance of vaccination which is that a vaccinated person, even when they get covid-19, they won’t get critically like those that aren’t vaccinated. They have higher chances of surviving the virus than those who don’t.

The VHTs also revealed that most people assume that covid-19 is no more and therefore, social distancing, sanitizing and wearing masks are considered by many as things that ended with the lockdown. Once the lockdowns were lifted, everyone stopped being cautious. They all agreed that more sensitization needs to be done by all stakeholders.

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