Government will this week roll out a mass vaccination campaign against Covid-19 and this will be targeting children between 5-12 years, an exercise that is expected to boost the immunity of the population against the virus that brought the world on its knees just two years ago.

The exercise follows similar campaigns that first targeted the adult population and was later extended to teenaged children. Currently, over 70 per cent of the total population are fully vaccinated which makes Rwanda the leading country in Sub-Sahara Africa to have achieved this feat.

It is important that the entire nation rally behind this latest campaign that targets to have at least 2 million children in this age-group vaccinated. Majority of them will be vaccinated from school, where 3,880 school have been designated as vaccination centres for the pediatric vaccine.

For this to be a success, there is need for understanding and appreciation of the importance of this exercise to the country’s effort to significantly mitigate the risk of the virus to the population, to allow the return to complete normalcy.

According to medics, vaccinating children in this age-group will significantly reduce the circulation of the virus in the community and limit the risk of further outbreaks in both healthy people and those vulnerable to severe Covid-19 such as pregnant women and those of advanced age.

Enough precaution has been taken going into the exercise, and children will be administered with a special pediatric formulation of the Pfizer vaccine (10 microgramme/dose), which has been approved by different medical regulatory bodies including Rwanda Food and Drugs Authority. It means our children are safe.

It will call for the understanding of parents, schools and community leaders of various sheds to make this campaign a success.

When such campaigns are rolled out, there tend to be misinformation and fallacies that are promoted to discourage those efforts. Fortunately, Rwandans have seen through much of these conspiracy theories, which led to the huge success for not just the vaccination drive, but also the holistic effort to fight against Covid-19.