Community engagement along the Gambian-Senegalese border to bust myths about the Covid-19 vaccine

Madou Ceesay lives in Kiang Sandeng, a small village in The Gambia’s Lower River Region, on the border with Senegal. Mobile populations who move across this border tend to be vulnerable to the spread of diseases and often hardest to reach with health information and services. “The living conditions here are not easy since people are always coming in and out. The porous nature of the border has given us a lot of concerns in times of COVID-19,” says Madou.

In The Gambia, only 18.5 per cent of the total population has been fully vaccinated against COVID-19, according to the Ministry of Health. The International Organization for Migration (IOM) has been working with the national health authorities to raise awareness among mobile populations along the country’s 749-kilometre border with its neighbour Senegal. The joint campaign includes complementary inoculation against the virus.

Madou received one of his COVID-19 shots through IOM’s and the Ministry of Health’s immunization campaign. “Living in a border community, I was scared when I heard about the coronavirus for the first time on the news,” says Madou. “The COVID-19 pandemic has caused a lot of confusion to the local population, but I know that it is a very serious disease, and the only thing we can do to prevent it is through medical advice and control. If we consult doctors, we can prevent ourselves and others from catching the virus.”

“The campaign is mainly targeting the border communities who are easily prone to being affected by the disease. Infected people can easily go to Senegal or come to The Gambia and spread the disease,” says Musa H. Camara who was trained to support the campaign in his community. “When COVID-19 struck, there were a lot of misconceptions around the virus’s effects on patients. However, with the approach we are using together with IOM, we manage to engage communities along the Gambian-Senegalese border and have discussions with them about the virus.”

The awareness-raising and vaccination campaign was launched at the end of 2021 and has been rolled out in five regions, with one more to cover. The campaign was initially geared towards reducing the transmission of COVID-19, especially at the community level. Since the roll-out of the vaccination campaign nationwide, the messages are focused on the COVID-19 vaccine.

“Now we have the vaccine. We talk about vaccine safety and the advances that are available. We answer their questions,” describes Muhammed Touray, National Health Promotion Officer at IOM who has coordinated the campaign in collaboration with the Ministry of Health. “We try to eliminate the myths and misconceptions about the COVID-19 vaccine, for instance that it causes reproductive problems. We generally try to boost the community’s confidence in taking the vaccine to reach the ministry’s target of 60 per cent of the population vaccinated. “We still have a long way to go.”

Madou got inoculated as soon as the vaccine became available. “I did not have second thoughts, especially knowing how bad symptoms can be. I also told my wife to take the vaccine. My entire family is fully vaccinated now, and I decided to take my second booster shot of the vaccine.” In his community, not everyone seized the opportunity as readily as he did. “People should not listen to everything they hear or see on social media, because it may be misleading.”

“We go into the communities and engage the population through the community leaders. They will be the first person to take the vaccine. Sometimes he will just show his vaccine card that shows he already took the vaccine. The leaders have an influence, and they already have the confidence of the people,” describes Muhammed Touray.

Another way in which the campaign targets the community is through information relayed by the Ministry of Health staff and public health communicators. “They use history to appeal to the elderly. Those people have an idea of what happened before. There were sudden outbreaks before, which were prevented through vaccinations. This way, people are reminded about what happened before – of diseases that they’ve heard about but never seen. We attribute those achievements to vaccinations,” Muhammed continues.

Overseeing the campaign across all locations, Muhammed is pleased with what the teams have achieved so far.  “Some of the regions did extremely well. We had a very high number of people getting vaccinated, and in some of the villages, they will tell you we didn't get vaccinated because they are hesitant, and in the end, they got vaccinated.”

Some of the vaccine hesitancy is due to misinformation and cultural beliefs but another challenge to reaching the inoculation target is due to the communities’ remoteness and distance from regional health facilities. “You have to travel kilometres and also you need to use a donkey cart to go to the hospital. Some people were not willing to put all that energy just to go and get the vaccine. But when we put the bus into the village, they said ‘we will take it because now it's accessible to us’,” says Muhammed.

The campaign has been rolled out in all regions targeted by the teams, with the remaining region to be reached soon. What remains now is to reach the people who are still hesitant in taking the vaccine.

“Even though it has been challenging, it has been a successful campaign,” Musa concludes.

IOM and MOH’s COVID-19 immunization campaign is being implemented in Gambian-Senegalese border communities, with financial support from the European Union's Emergency Trust Fund for Africa through the EU-IOM Joint Initiative for Migrant Protection and Reintegration.

Learn more about the campaign here.