The bad news:
- Neither Sanma nor Shefa are on track to achieve their 90% first-dose target by year-end. Both provinces are showing a slow-down in vaccination rates. The easy ones are all done. Gaps in community leadership are creating problems for teams on the ground, who often proceed at a desultory rate, well below their potential.
- Still no news from the Penama team. They’ve been at it for nearly three weeks, but we’ve seen no progress reports.
- After months of work, the 1->2 shot translation rate remains stubbornly high in Shefa province. A full 10 weeks after the first shot, a steady 8% of recipients still haven’t got their second shot. After 12 weeks, the number is still 7%.
If 7-8% of people never get a second shot, we cannot reach our goal of 90% of adults fully inoculated. Ever.
It’s clear from the data that our health teams need more support. They need more appropriate vaccines for the remotest areas.
They need community leaders to step up and show to the way to their people.
They need money, people and supplies. Right now, it’s everything they can do to keep the teams running. There is no bandwidth left to organise, to recruit, to plan, to address problems, and most importantly, to follow up with people.
We have tens of thousands more vaccines to deliver, and they have to be delivered one shot at a time. Either we’re all in on the win, or we all in trouble.
Either way, we’re in this together.