By DALCY LULUA
THE ABC International Development (ABCID) have supported the National Department of Health (NDoH) in promoting a campaign to tackle vaccination misinformation and boost public trust in vaccinations.
The campaign called ‘Tok Immuniti App’ was launched yesterday.
It is an application designed locally to tackle misinformation about vaccination and boost public trust in vaccinations while empowering health workers to speak knowledgeably and confidently about immunity and vaccination in the country.
ABCID Senior Advisor to Papua New Guinea (PNG) Rob Batten said it has been a long journey and the launching of the app shows the fruit of partnership.
“I would like to suggest the fruit of partnership, a step for the Government of Papua New Guinea to use the power of communication from the digital world to reach out across the country to provide essential information.
“Tok Immuniti is a National campaign led by the Department of Health that tackles vaccination misinformation and we hope boost public trust in vaccination,” he added.
Mr Batten further explains the meaning behind the Tok Immuniti campaign.
“Tok Immuniti which means ‘talking about Immunity’ – puts digital and physical resources into the hands of particularly health workers in the provinces and districts empowering them to have the conversation with local citizens about the vaccination program.
“Health is essential to everybody from birth to death.
“Every one of us at one stage has an interaction with the health industry and we all trust the information that we get from our doctors and health workers.
“This is the aim of Tok Immuniti is to help to build the trust with health workers,” he explained.
Mr. Batten stressed that health workers across the country will be introduced to an innovative digital application featuring videos, fact sheet and chat functions so they can talk to each other about issues that they may be facing.
“They will also have access to printed materials like pamphlets, brochures, flyers and audio and video information which have been produced locally.”
ABC International has been working in PNG for almost 20 years supporting the media, NGO’s and other programs to reach people with factual information presented within appealing ways to help drive PNG’s development agenda.
At the same time, a major national multimedia campaign will be launched this week which will inform PNG citizens about the importance of talking with health workers about vaccination for their babies and for their children, for their families.
Deputy Secretary, Public Health Mr Ken Wai thanked the ABCID team, Australian High Commission and the Immunization Program Poject Managers for the two hard years of a job well done.
“I want to thank you all for your hard work in the last two years as it is a success now that we have launched the campaign.”
Vatava Media Representative and the developer of the Tok Immuniti App Mr Stehen Kila said this app is built in the country as app development is quite new in the country.
“This app was built in the country, app development in PNG is quite new and we can be proud that this is a Papua New Guinean app for Papua New Guineans.
“This app is developed as a Progressive Web App (PWA) that means it act as a website and also acts as a traditional mobile phone app.
“PWAs are amazing, they are bandwidth usage.
“The app can be downloaded and used in Android phones or iPhones and it’s quite easy to use as well,” he said.
Caption: ABCID Advisor to PNG Rob Batten (left) handing over the Tok Immuniti App to Deputy Secretary, Public Health, Mr. Ken Wai during the launching of the App. – Picture by Dalcy Lulua
