Liberia: Over 400 Indians including Foreign Nationals Undergo COVID-19 Vaccination

Monrovia – The former Honorary Consul General of the Indian Consulate in Liberia, Mr. Upjit Singh Sachdeva (Jeety), is calling on the public to take the COVID-19 vaccine as a means of protecting themselves and their families.

Jeety, as he is usually called made this statement at the GURDWARA SAHIB JI Temple in the Coconut Plantation Community in Mamba Point on Sunday during the vaccination exercise for over 400 individuals from different nationalities by staffers of the Ministry of Health. 

“When you get vaccinated you save a life. Everybody should get vaccinated to save themselves and to save other people’s lives, so we can eradicate coronavirus from this Universe,” Jetty said.

He added, “This exercise has been going for the last two hours; we have reached almost 250 to 300 people. Because the registration we did here –says 400 people are here. And they are not only one nationality; they were from across the septum. They were Indians Lebanese –I saw Syrians Pakistani, Syrians, and Liberians on the line and so there were more nationality.”

Jetty who himself got vaccinated said with just four days of awareness, he is pleased to have such a huge number of individuals that have come to get vaccinated.

During the vaccination exercise, the women were giving the chance first to get their vaccine followed by the elderly. One of male elder was Dr. Ahdul Haleem Araen. Araen is an Indian National and staff of the Ahmadiyya Clinic.

As a medical practitioner himself, Dr. Araen called on Liberians to take advantage of the vaccine and avoid risking their lives.

“I asked all my Liberian friends to be vaccinated. I think the risk of COVID-19 is more than the vaccination,” Dr. Araen said.

Also, Nudrat Harfeez is an Indian national. She is a professor at the University of Liberia teaching English and Literature. After getting vaccinated, Prof. Harfeez said to journalists that there is so much reluctance from Liberians about getting vaccinated. 

“Even in the University of Liberia, the students I teach tell me that they don’t see any reason of taking the coronavirus vaccine. But I hope that this message goes out there that the vaccine is good and it will help them save lives,” Prof. Harfeez said. 

For his part, the Program Manager for Expended Program Immunization Adolphus T. Clarke praised Jeety and his team for organizing nationals from different countries to get vaccinated. He says the gathering signifies the second largest number of people getting vaccinated in a single day.

“We want to make sure that people who are providing services to the government, people who are contributing to the economy are also protected as they go about doing their works,” the Program Manager for Expanded Program Immunization said.

When asked about the enrollment of Liberians getting vaccinated Clarke said the number of Liberians taking the COVID-19 is low but optimistic that in the coming days more citizens will come over to do their vaccines.

He added: “The last data collected on April 14 2021 shows that 2732 Liberians have taken the vaccine. We encourage more people, especially Liberians to come and get vaccinated.”