Working with local health care workers, civil society and local government units, WHO has been tackling misinformation amongst the 3,000 inhabitants on the remote island of Manicani in the Philippines to help prevent the spread of COVID-19.
For the past two years, people on the remote island of Manicani in the Philippines have been recovering from the COVID-19 pandemic and building their resilience with the help of WHO, local government actors, health care workers and civil society organizations.
Misinformation about the vaccine combined with the high cost of a 45-minute boat ride to the nearest vaccination centres meant vaccine uptake amongst the population of Manicani Island in the Eastern Samar province was low.
WHO partnered with People In Need (PIN) Philippines, an international non-profit organization funded by the EU that works with vulnerable and hard-to-reach groups, to better understand the barriers to vaccination and develop plans to overcome them.
With support from WHO, PIN led the COVID-19 response on the island, working 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. By listening to the concerns of those living in Manacani’s four villages, the PIN team was able to develop tailored information and educational materials, translated into the local language, to help fill gaps in people’s knowledge and provide science-based messaging. To further debunk some of the misinformation and concerns, the team organized meetings with trusted members of the community, including residents, local government and health workers.
Lorena Ida, a village health worker, said trust in the health care community was crucial to 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) to show that nothing bad will happen if you get vaccinated,” she said.
These efforts resulted in a significant increase in vaccine update and reduction in COVID-19 cases - every resident in Manicani Island was provided information and vaccination rates almost tripled, leading to 79% of the eligible population being vaccinated by March 2022.
This work became an important part of WHO’s Civil Society Organization (CSO) Initiative; an accelerator project aiming to strengthen civil society engagement in the response to COVID-19 locally and nationally.
