The Omaruru mayor’s office, in solidarity with local authority residents and those from peripheral settlements and commercial farmers, recently embarked on a vigorous campaign to solicit medical equipment and personal protective equipment (PPE) for the local district hospital. 

Similarly, the mayor’s office is currently engaging in spreading preventative measures, which include Covid-19 vaccination campaigns that seek to disseminate information and encourage the community and individuals to be vaccinated. 

The slow uptake in the vaccination exercise due to multiple factors, including but not limited to testing equipment, the availability of doses and the deliberate misinformation or myths related to the use of Covid-19 vaccines, has resulted in the challenge of not reaching herd immunity. 

To this end, the mayor’s office has received significant donations of 87 Covid-19 Antigen Rapid Diagnostic Test Kits (A-RDT), including protective transparent plastic goggles. The donation was handed over to senior medical officer Dr Diina Katoma. 

In addition to this positive gesture, the mayor’s office is also involved in support of Covid-19 interventions in constituencies in the Erongo region in stepping up vaccine mobilisation campaigns in anticipation of receiving substantial doses of Covid-19 vaccines from the health authorities. 

Through these endeavours, the council’s relentless efforts have added a vehicle to the ministerial mobile team as an enabler, while public announcements will be carried out through the municipal transport department. 

The Covid-19 vaccination outreach will start today and run until 20 August. 

Mayor Roger Nautoro said the welcome gesture will subsequently reduce and shorten the waiting period of testing results, and they would thus like to reaffirm council’s commitment to supporting all endeavours that prevent and annex the spread of the ill-fated pandemic.