The Expanded Program on Immunization (EPI) revealed in a recent survey that only 17.8% of the 133,304 health workers in Cameroon are fully vaccinated against Covid-19 as of November 1, 2021.

Per region, Adamaoua has the highest vaccination coverage for caregivers (39.6%), ahead of the poorest performer, the Central region, with only 12.2%, while 6 of the 10 regions in the country have a rate higher than 17.8%. This showed that despite all the measures deployed by the government to encourage them, health workers are still reluctant to get vaccinated.

A national study on the acceptability of Covid-19 vaccination revealed that 37.6% of them were not in favor of vaccination. They say they doubt the efficacy of the vaccine (54.3%) and the reliability of the treatment. However, the vaccination coverage of health workers remains very high compared to the rest of the population.

Only 1.9% of elderly people and 5.9% of people with co-morbidities are fully vaccinated so far. In total, 3% of the target population (estimated at 13,944,491 people) have received a dose of the vaccine, and only 1.2% of this population is fully vaccinated.

To improve this number, the government planned another vaccination campaign for this month. "An intensive Covid-19 vaccination campaign is planned for November 17-21, 2021 throughout the country. I encourage people to get vaccinated so that we achieve herd immunity. Vaccination saves lives! Let's get vaccinated," the public health minister, Manaouda Malachie, tweeted on October 31.

Let’s note that the number of Covid-19 cases in Cameroon has already exceeded 100,000 with 1,750 deaths.

P.N.N