Most effective vaccine against epidemics remains education, study says

Vaccines have been discovered for the prevention of coronavirus and other related diseases, but the most effective vaccine remains education, a study has said.

The study, entitled “Preventive Education Strategies as Vaccine to COVID-19 and Related Diseases in Nigeria”, a TET Fund 2020 National Research, found that existing preventive education is more effective in the local language of the people and based on their location and ethnicity.

They reported that preventive education has proven to be the most effective before, during and after any pandemic, including HIV and COVID-19, and therefore, communication strategies should leverage the preferred media channels in preventive education.

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The researchers from the University of Ibadan, University of Port Harcourt, and Bayero University had set out to determine if the developed preventive education strategies for the containment of COVID-19 deployed through preferred language and media could improve preventive behaviours that are sustainable.

Nine thousand people of various ethnic backgrounds from Oyo, Rivers, and Kano States—three states in Nigeria with significant COVID-19 incidence during the disease outbreak—were included in the study, whose aim included identifying the preferred media for COVID-19 information and determining the efficiency of existing delivery processes.

The study’s principal investigator, Professor Rashid Aderinoye, at the dissemination of the study’s findings, said education is a channel of information for ensuring individuals are well educated, orientated and involved in preventive steps to cause a change when a problem arises, including health-related ones.

“Aside from the posters and the jingles, we found that in the rural area, radio and village theatres are the appropriate mediums of communication with the audience, while in the urban centres, the channels of communication are social media (Facebook), radio and television. The preferred mode of communication was the local dialect.

“Apart from effective use of educational activities, the vaccine played a little role because people are even forced to take the vaccine. The preventive practices were well packaged in the educational programme,” he said.