MANKAYAN, Benguet – A number of information and education campaign (IEC) teams was recently organized by the municipal government to spearhead the conduct of aggressive information campaign in the town’s twelve barangays to increase the acceptability of the vaccines that will be provided by the national government to help achieve herd immunity among Filipinos
Mayor Frenzel A. Ayong stated that the initial steps that local governments should undertake is to inform and educate the people on the benefits and advantages of being vaccinated against the Coronavirus Disease 2019 (COVID-19) so that they will be provided with the appropriate information to guide them in deciding whether or not to be vaccinated.
He said that the town’s IEC are composed of health workers, barangay officials and volunteers who are willing to go around the different barangays and explain to the people the benefits of being vaccinated against the deadly virus so that it will be easy for the health department and the local government to roll out the vaccination in the municipality once the vaccines are readily available.
“The members of our IEC teams will have their hands full of information that will be provided to the people to help them understand the benefits of the conduct of the vaccination against the deadly virus once the vaccines will arrive. We have to prepare the people so that the conduct of the vaccination will be smoothly implemented,” Mayor Ayong stressed.
The local chief executive claimed that it is important for the people to first understand the importance of being vaccinated that it is why the local government embarked on the organization of the IEC teams to spearhead the conduct of the information campaign while awaiting for the arrival of the vaccines in the municipality.
According to him, residents in the various barangays should be ready to be vaccinated before the vaccines that will be provided will be delivered in the locality so that the conduct of the mass vaccination could be immediately rolled out to help achieve herd immunity among the populace because local officials and health workers do not want unnecessary delays in the conduct of the vaccination.
He pointed out that it is easy to comply with the prescribed requirements for local governments to be able to avail of the allocations of vaccines from the national government but local governments must make sure that the vaccines will be provided to their constituents so that there will be no significant spoilages because there are less people who want to be vaccinated compared to the number of supposed beneficiaries under the presented master list.
While the vaccines have yet to arrive in the country and subsequently distributed in the different parts of the country, the mayor emphasized that it is very important for local governments to work on aggressive grassroots information and education campaign so that there will be grater acceptability of the vaccines once the same will be available and that it will be easier for local officials and health workers to roll out the mass vaccination in their respective areas of jurisdiction. By HENT
