My people don't believe the pandemic is Real....A case study on Covid19

To everyone reading this post, I hope everyone is doing great. This study was conducted in "Nanton district " ,the Northern part of Ghana of which some rural communities were selected for this exercise to be conducted which has been sponsored kind courtesy HERPolafrica, a non governmental organization in Tamale .

The study seeks to educate and inform the people living in these communities of the pandemic and how they can prevent themselves from been infected and also to provide the people with some PPEs (personal protective equipments ) to help prevent themselves.

The community we visited has a population of about one thousand, nine hundred and seventy (1970), out of which about 70% are females and 30% males. Community members are mainly farmers and traders and also predominantly Muslims.

Our team visited the community as Community health volunteers in addition with the coordinator, with the help of the contact person in the community visited the chief’s palace, introduced the organization and ourselves and he immediately remembered us based on the previous project carried out last year. He immediately warmly welcomed us and commended the organization for all the intervention given to the community; provision of personal protective equipment and provision of skills training to some community members in the previous year.

Everyone who was among the team was given questionnaires to interview respondents so we will be able to know how the people perceive the pandemic.

The data was accurately gathered.

With regard to behavioral and attitudinal changes in the community members after phase one rolled out, the chief assured us that the community takes the adherence to the covid-19 prevention protocols very seriously. He was pleased that the team is back this year to strengthen the need for community members to take these protocols more seriously. He then granted us permission to carry out our mission.
During the team’s transect walk, contrary to data gathered from the palace about if community members adhere to the covid-19 protocols, it was observed that none of the community members wears a nose mask, ask, neither did they maintain physical distancing.
It was also observed that the community with one thousand and ninety-seven (197) households even tough has a pipe line connection, there is no water flow, hence its major water sources are one borehole and a dam within the community.
Despite the aforementioned challenges, it was observed that the community has ten public toilet facilities funded by REVSODEP- IRISHAD. A few households also had private toilet facilities situated by the houses which we believe will go a long way to, if not totally eradicate but reduce to a bare minimum open defecation, which we have come to realize could be another source of infection.

Our team had few minutes of interaction with some community members. We found out that community members who had been trained in soap making and sewing of nose masks during the first phase of the project had not officially started producing on their own for sales, with the reason that they do not have enough seed capital to do so.
We also had a chat with a group of community members who were very enthusiastic about the ongoing vaccination but complained about never getting the opportunity to get themselves and their families vaccinated. The team explained and assured them that at the right time, they would be covered as well since currently, the vaccination has not been rolled out to the general public yet.
Today’s community entry and short interaction with some community members proved to us that the community anticipates our subsequent visits.

It was awesome having these interactions with the community and we intend broadening this outreach.
Thanks so much for reading