Only 3 % of South Sudan Likely Vaccinated by Next Month : The Sun

Irish UNICEF volunteer - Dara Johnson on Vaccination Challenge

By
Nicola Bardon
thesun.ie
3 min
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JUST three per cent of South Sudan could be vaccinated against Covid by next month, an Irish volunteer there has revealed.

Chief of water Dara Johnson is working with the charity in landlocked South Sudan, which is surrounded by other African nations with soaring cases.

He said: “We’ve a population of 11million so we got 132,000 doses in May and that’s targeting about three per cent of the ­population. The whole idea is to get things up and running because you don’t want to get vaccines that expire, you want to get a system in place.

“So last week we transported everything out to the ten states around the country and the whole process has now started.


“The worry for a landlocked country such as South Sudan is how the nations nearby are dealing with the pandemic.

“All the countries around are on the red list and Uganda especially is seeing a big surge in Covid cases. I don’t know if the numbers are coming out but we’re certainly hearing about a lot of deaths here.

“We’re not seeing it here right now but the monitoring systems are very weak so you can’t be fully reliant on that.”

UNICEF is now working to convince people to get jabbed. Dara said: “In most towns you do get internet access and you see a lot of the young ­people with smartphones.

“But I don’t know the figures for Facebook ­membership in South Sudan, I don’t think it’s very high. Most people get their information from the radio and some newspapers.

“So we’ve been using radio broadcasts to get information out there and try to convince people they should come.

“And since we’ve opened the vaccination centres around the country, there have been people coming every day but not in the numbers we would like.”
The current doses run out in July and they need to keep more coming. That’s why the Irish Sun is the media partner for UNICEF’s campaign.

And Dara has noticed throughout his career that Irish people are among the highest donors globally.


He said: “It’s one of the things as an Irish person I’m very proud of. We’re a lot wealthier now than earlier on in my career but still we had a very large ­percentage not just of the ­Government’s contribution, but the average person’s.”
WEAK HEALTH SYSTEM

He added: “There is a very weak health system here, the infrastructure, oxygen . . . the ­system is not here.

“So if there is an outbreak, like what ­happened in India . . . once the virus gets going it doesn’t stop.

“And the other side of it, it’s not just vaccines. There’s a whole system that has to be in place. There has to be a cold chain to get the vaccines out there.


"We have to have needles and syringes, even water at the health centre to ensure hygiene — all of those things have to go along with the vaccines.

“This campaign is a great idea if people can afford it. We can utilise those resources to get to as many people as ­possible.”



Just 3% of South Sudan could be vaccinated by next month, Irish UNICEF volunteer reveals