April 18, 2023
Māori-led vaccination campaign needed for whooping cough
Kirikiriroa Māori health advocate and Tūmuaki of Te Kōhao Health, Lady Tureti Moxon is calling for a Covid-style vaccination effort to increate immunity to whooping cough.
Three pepe have died this year of the bacteria-generated disease after immunisation rates fell to an historic low.
It’s an issue of huge concern to Māori, yet Māori aren’t being allowed to put forward solutions that work in their own communities.
“We get left out and that is what the inequities are telling us, that is what the sickness of our people are telling us, the incarceration of our people is telling us, we are just locked up and the key thrown away,” Lady Moxon says.
She wants the resources put into the Māori health authority, Te Aka Whai Ora, so it can lead the campaign.