RECRUITING influencers to promote the uptake of COVID-19 vaccines (COVAX) could be key to ensuring the success of the Federal Government's immunisation campaign, Queensland University of Technology School of Clinical Sciences Head, Dr Lisa Nissen, believes.
Speaking during a webinar last night, Nissen, who has been seconded to join the Queensland Health COVID Taskforce to assist with the vaccine rollout in the state, warned that hesitancy or apathy could be biggest obstacles to achieving the required vaccination rates.
Nissen noted that during a conversation with experts in Israel yesterday, they had reported issues in getting people aged 35 years and younger to come forward to be vaccinated, despite the prevalence of community transmission, hospitalisations and mortality associated with COVID-19 there.
"So I have in my mind that communication using influencers, using all those kind of folk to deal with that potential hesitancy and anti-vaccine message will be really important for us, because it's not in our eyeline," she said.
"People aren't dying around us, we're not having relatives, friends and others dying like other countries have had, so that urge for everyone to get vaccinated and do it for the nation just isn't there.
"So unless we can leverage that it may be difficult to reach the vaccine rated that we're hoping to get."
Nissen added the rollout of COVAX could be an opportunity to "keep stepping on the pillars we've already made" to expand pharmacists and pharmacy workers' roles in the health system.
"This is a great opportunity, not just for pharmacists, but the broader pharmacy team that includes the assistant and technician workforce," she said.
"I think it's going to be amazing for us as a profession broadly."
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