Australia's largest Indigenous health organisation has launched a six-week COVID vaccination blitz, as figures show 79 per cent of its central Australian town-based clients are unvaccinated.
Donna Ah Chee, CEO of the Central Australian Aboriginal Congress (CAAC) which is based in Alice Springs, said she was extremely worried that thousands of the organisation's clients were unvaccinated.
Only 13.7 per cent of the congress's town-based clients are fully vaccinated.
"It's not a case of if the Delta strain will come here, it is a case of when," Ms Ah Chee said.
"Our challenge is that we've got 79 per cent of our [Aboriginal] population that are unvaccinated.
Ms Ah Chee said the organisation was ramping up its efforts to vaccinate Aboriginal people in the community.
"[We've had] a house-to-house outreach program in Alice Springs town camps and a pop-up clinic in the Yeperenye shopping centre," she said.
"We've just done pop-up clinic and community engagement at the CAFL remote community football recently."
Thousands need vaccine
Ms Ah Chee said that one of the obstacles the CAAC was trying to overcome was vaccine hesitancy.
"That's why at congress we can't sit back and wait and see — look what's happening over in New South Wales.
"We want to see 50 per cent of our town clinic people over the age of 16 to have at least had one dose.
"So that's about 2,400 additional people."
'Use Indigenous languages'
Ms Ah Chee said there needed to be incentives and more messaging in local Aboriginal languages to help boost the vaccination rates.
"We've heard about the concept of vaccine passports … If you're vaccinated, then there are certain privileges — you can travel, you can have access to restaurants, pubs and sporting events."
According to Ms Ah Chee, the Northern Territory government has not done enough to ensure that key vaccine messaging has been delivered in Aboriginal languages.
"I think that's been slow off the mark by government. We're filling in the vacuum unfortunately."
The NT government provides a list of audio messages in 18 Aboriginal languages on the coronavirus webpage.
