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The NACI problem and how to fix it
The volunteer panel is dispensing crucial vaccine advice meant to keep Canadians safe and healthy. But NACI desperately needs to do better on the national stage.
May 17, 2021 People wearing face masks line up to enter a COVID-19 vaccination clinic in Toronto on May 5, 2021. (Zou Zheng/Xinhua via ZUMA Press)
Monika Naus once spent an entire summer vacation reading through a final draft of the Canadian Immunization Guide. Back then, Naus was chair of the National Advisory Committee on Immunization (NACI), a panel of doctors and scientists that offers recommendations on vaccine usage to a constellation of health-care providers across Canada. Naus’s workload could be daunting, in part because the committee had little administrative support. Still, she volunteered her time for more than a decade and chaired NACI from 2003 to 2007.
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This is the kind of outreach that Kulpreet Singh with the South Asian Mental Health Alliance says there needs to be more of, and not just when there is a culturally specific event or holiday celebrated by a racialized community.
“We’re seeing some of that customization and some of that culturally relevant targeting starting to happen now, and it’s very late,” Singh told Daily Hive.
“But I think that still if there’s any progress being made, it’s good, and we should really continue pushing in that direction.”
Singh acknowledges that the BC government provides some translated materials on its website, but says these efforts could have a larger reach with culturally relevant and language-specific infographics, and audio and video interpretation for those whose first languages are not English or French.