New figures show vaccination rates in Victoria’s Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander communities are still lagging well behind those in the broader population, prompting a fresh campaign to try to sell the benefits of the jab.
Veteran performer and Aboriginal Elder, Uncle Jack Charles, has fronted the latest campaign to try to redress the difference, in which 78 per cent of Indigenous people in Victoria were fully vaccinated with two doses compared with 89.3 per cent of the broader population.
Uncle Jack Charles lays it on the line at the Victoria Aboriginal Health Service in Fitzroy Melbourne.Credit:Darrian Traynor
About 85 per cent of Indigenous people in Victoria aged 12 years and over had received at least one dose of the COVID-19 vaccine, compared to 93.5 per cent of the rest of the state.
While there have been no major outbreaks in Indigenous communities in Victoria since the pandemic began, Aboriginal leaders and public health practitioners have expressed concern about the effect of the Delta strain since restrictions began to ease.
National Aboriginal Community Controlled Health Organisations medical adviser, Dr Jason Agostino, told The Age and The Sydney Morning Herald that Indigenous communities needed to be at a minimum of 90 per cent double vaccination coverage before the state borders in South Australia and Queensland should open.
In September, it was revealed that a computer program used by the national immunisation register had incorrectly inflated the data on Indigenous vaccination numbers in the state, belatedly alerting authorities of how short Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Victorians were from the one-dose target of 80 per cent before lockdown restrictions were eased at the end of October.
NACCHO chief executive Pat Turner told a federal Senate hearing in October that the sector held “significant concerns” for Indigenous communities across the country.
In the Northern Territory, an outbreak of 35 cases has reached poor Aboriginal communities at the edge of Katherine, and in NSW a large outbreak has hit Moree, north-west of Sydney.
The new campaign was launched at the Victorian Aboriginal Health Service (VAHS) on Monday and aims to drive the rate of vaccination above 90 per cent in Indigenous communities before the start of the Christmas and New Year season.
‘Disregard your phone’: Uncle Jack tells Indigenous community to get vaxxed
Source: Philippines Alive
