Religious and faith-based leaders held an online meeting yesterday with the Principal Secretary from the Health Department on their key role in battling vaccine hesitancy and spread of misinformation regarding Covid-19.
Over 150 religious leaders from a range of faiths were present.
Religious leaders and faith-based communities have been playing an important role in sensitizing masses about the Covid-19 virus and the importance and rationale behind Covid-19 appropriate behaviour. And now, as intensive vaccination drives continue, vaccine hesitancy and misinformation, among other factors, have emerged as huge deterrents to preventative care against the coronavirus. And with an aim to tackle this, the state administration organized a one-to-one online interactive session with the religious and faith-based leaders yesterday.
Seventy percent of the faith-based leaders said that they were already taking actions while 30 percent responded that they were willing to take actions but just did not know how to systematically go about doing the needful.
In many hard-to-reach areas of Meghalaya, where people still do not use smartphones and internet, religious places and congregations can act as crucial platforms for information dissemination and addressing concern and queries related to vaccines as well as Covid-19.
An important highlight of discussion was the merger of faith and science to effectively communicate with and sensitise the masses.
“Public vaccination hesitancy is a matter of great concern and misinformation is the root cause. We have a serious responsibility to lead our people responsibly by removing all misinformation,” said RM Blah, general secretary of the Federation of Traditional Village Leaders of Khasi and Jaiñtia Hills.
