FAMILIES are Nations president Judith Mwila says government should not be in a hurry to access and roll out paediatrics COVID-19 vaccines.

In an interview, Mwila said there had not been many babies and children being infected with COVID-19.

“You know, in the health sector things are changing every month, the health preventive measures have to be adjusted to a lot, and as families, we need to just look at the safety precaution. My caution is let this not be done in a hurry because I think also from what we hear everyday, I don’t know, we haven’t had so many babies being infected of COVID and the children, the numbers are quite minimal. So, knowing that, some of these vaccines have been known to have side effects and COVID has been on the list currently, maybe because it is an issue we don’t know about. I would like to urge the government to make sure that when it does find that everything is okay, they just need to do an intensive assessment to make sure everything is okay.” she said.

“We are dealing with a population which is already grappling with, even just the vaccination of adults, even taking the second doses has been a problem. If we hurry, we might have too much on our plate. But it’s a welcome move because it’s going to save the lives of our children just like we said recently. I also understand that this vaccination process has to be gradual. So it started from the adults, came to adolescents and now it’s going to come to younger children. It’s fine, let’s just take the required precautions and also ensure that sensitisation is done properly so that people don’t have doubts.”

She said sensitisation was key to reaching out to many people and spreading awareness.

“I think sensitisation raises awareness messages that families on the ground are feeling a bit left out. I think they are not getting enough information so we need to intensify that. Families are a Nation is actually a partner with the Ministry of Health to do also the sensitisation. So we are hoping that accessibility can just increase the strategies so that it can effectively reach out to everybody with required information,” said Mwila.