Covid 19: Direct action needed to fight vaccine misinformation among Māori - kaumātua

Vaccination rates for Māori in the MidCentral Disrict Health Board rohe are 69 per cent for the first dose and 49 per cent fully vaccinated. Photo / ManawatuNZ.co.nz

Beating misinformation could hold the key to lifting the lagging Māori Covid-19 vaccination rate in the greater Manawatū region.

Regional councillor and Rangitāne iwi kaumātua Wiremu Te Awe Awe said some people had been sucked in by wrong information about the Covid-19 vaccine.

Te Awe Awe said that had to be overcome in the drive to hit the 90 per cent vaccination target and direct action was needed to reach unjabbed people.

"We need to perhaps visit them one-on-one - probably very similar to what they did up in Auckland in the [Pacific] Island community.

"Let's go to the community directly, encourage those ones in their homes, because some of them believe ... the misinformation that's going around."

The latest available figures to Monday showed 85 per cent of eligible people within the MidCentral District Health Board's boundaries have received their first vaccine and 69 per cent are fully vaccinated.

Rates for Māori in the region are 69 per cent and 49 per cent, respectively.

Those numbers are close to the national average, but MidCentral is one of six health boards Associate Health Minister Peeni Henare has said must do more to increase the Māori vaccination rate.

Vaccinations were becoming mandatory for many jobs and industries so Māori networks needed to mobilise to get people jabbed, Te Awe Awe said.

Adele Small, the board's iwi and Māori engagement lead, was confident the vaccination rate would hit 90 per cent for Māori. She said the board was working with iwi and Māori health providers, and was starting to see gains.

"We just need to keep doing what we're doing and keep engaging with our communities to understand why they may not have presented at this stage of the programme for their vaccine.

"Is it about access? How can we get closer to them? And then if it's about hesitancy how are we having those robust conversations with them, with people that they know and trust, to help us to understand what their viewpoint is."

When iwi and Māori health providers saw pockets of hesitancy they would get Dr Kelvin Billinghurst, the board's chief medical officer and clinical executive, to speak to groups and share accurate information.

The Māori population in the MidCentral area skewed towards a younger demographic and the board was working to reach those people through visits to schools and workplaces.

Board staff had also attended rural sales days, run evening clinics in remote areas, and set up a vaccination clinic in the middle of Palmerston North's busiest shopping zone, The Plaza, in the hope people would simply walk in and get a vaccination.

About 100 people a day are visiting the shopping centre clinic.

Stacey Hoggart, the board's Covid response vaccination co-ordinator, said people who had not engaged with the standard vaccination sites were more likely to visit The Plaza clinic.

"We're definitely finding our younger demographics are coming through The Plaza.

"We've noticed a lot of busy young mums and dads coming in with their children and being able to, opportunistically, get their vaccines done."

• Jimmy Ellingham is RNZ's Manawatū reporter.