Taking a ride to vaccinate Tanzania’s nomadic communities against COVID-19

Moving steadily through the rocky uplands in a remote mountainous area in Arusha region, Tanzania, Salimu Ngooni, a motorcycle taxi rider, is transporting health workers from Monduli Juu health centre to a nomadic Maasai village 40 kilometres away.

As part of government’s boma to boma campaign (a boma is a traditional Maasai homestead), the health workers are on their way to provide COVID-19 vaccination to this isolated community, inaccessible by car.

Motorcycle taxis, or boda bodas, are part of the fabric of everyday life in East Africa, from the busy metropoles to rural villages. For these health workers they are the only transport option to and between homesteads that can be up to five kilometres apart.

“I am very aware of the difficulties to reach communities with health services,” says Ngooni. “So, I decided to be around the health facilities to offer support in transporting health workers to reach these remote villages to get my people vaccinated.”

Edward Ngobei, a community leader in the village, says that residents were initially reluctant to get vaccinated against COVID-19. However, after health workers visited and sensitized the community, they were convinced of the vaccine’s benefits of protecting them against severe illness and death from COVID-19.

“However, the challenge then became how to access the vaccines because of where our community is located,” he says. “The boda bodas came to our rescue as they brought the health workers to us.”

As she carefully administers the vaccine, Rahel Mrema, a senior clinical nurse and vaccination team leader, describes the area as diverse and its people vulnerable to disease. “Aside from the community being hard-to-reach, people living here are very vulnerable. If one person contracts COVID-19, chances of the whole family getting exposed are very high.”

In Arusha region,18 months ago, only 2.8% of the population had received a COVID-19 vaccine. As a result of the tireless efforts of 200 teams of vaccinators, record keepers and social workers, vaccination coverage among the adult population has now reached 100%.

“Through European Union support, WHO contributed to significantly raising the coverage of COVID-19 vaccination in certain regions in Tanzania,” says Dr Charles Sagoe-Moses, WHO Representative in Tanzania. “The critical role of government and the local authorities, as well as ownership of the process by the communities, was instrumental during the COVID-19 pandemic.”

In Arusha, the boma to boma campaign is ongoing. Diana Lyuvale, a nurse who was recently deployed as a vaccinator, is one of the health workers who commutes to and from the Maasai village on the back of Ngooni’s boda boda.

The work is demanding because of language barriers and the difficult terrain, but Lyuvale believes that every location has its challenges, whether the city or the village.

“This is my first experience and as a health worker I like these challenges,” she says. “Seeing that my efforts are helping to reach the Maasai community with vaccines has been fulfilling.”