Over the past two years, people on the remote island of Manicani in the Philippines have built their resilience against COVID-19, with the help of a civil society organization, local government units, local health care workers and WHO.
In the early days of the pandemic, it was challenging for the 3000 residents of Manicani Island in the Eastern Samar province to separate sound advice on COVID-19 vaccinations from misinformation. Even those who wanted to be vaccinated faced the cost and hassle of a 45-minute boat ride to the nearest vaccination centers. As a result, vaccine uptake was low.
Under WHO’s Civil Society Organisation (CSO) Initiative, WHO partnered with People In Need (PIN) Philippines, an international non-profit organization that works with vulnerable and hard-to-reach groups to provide humanitarian and development assistance, to better understand these barriers to vaccination and how to overcome them.
The CSO Initiative was an accelerator project that aimed to strengthen civil society engagement in the response to COVID-19 at both the national and local levels. Through community-based interventions, WHO and its partners have worked to support some of the most vulnerable groups who are often left ‘unreached’ during health emergencies. In the Philippines, this initiative was also supported by the European Union.
With support from WHO, PIN led the COVID-19 response on the island and worked closely with village health workers, local leaders and the Department of Health, to promote vaccine confidence and improve awareness and action around COVID-19 guidelines.
The first step in understanding people’s reluctance to be vaccinated against COVID-19 was listening. The PIN team went house-to-house in Manicani’s four villages to understand people’s knowledge, perceptions, concerns and fears surrounding vaccination. To further understand and debunk these myths and concerns, the team organized meetings with residents of the island, local government units and health workers, who are trusted members of the community. Tailored and creative information, education and communication materials, translated into the local language, were also distributed and postered to help fill gaps in people’s knowledge, address rumors and provide science-based messaging.
These efforts resulted in a significant increase in vaccine uptake and reduction of COVID-19 cases via community transmission. Every resident in Manicani island was reached with information and vaccination rates almost tripled, with 79% of the island’s eligible population being vaccinated by March 2022. Overall, trust in health workers was crucial in keeping people safe and for the success of the project. “We were the first to get vaccinated because we are the frontliners so we served as examples to other people in our barangay [village] that nothing bad will happen if you will get vaccinated. (WHO’s Monthly Operational Update on Health Emergencies)
Gary P Hernal started college at UP Diliman and received his BA in Economics from San Sebastian College, Manila, and Masters in Information Systems Management from Keller Graduate School of Management of DeVry University in Oak Brook, IL. He has 25 years of copy editing and management experience at Thomson West, a subsidiary of Thomson Reuters.
