WiRED Featured in Claremont Graduate University News
Highlighting WiRED’s Vaccinator Training Program
By Allison Kozicharow; Edited by Elizabeth Fine
A recent Claremont Graduate University (CGU) news article, “New Paper Identifies ‘Citizen Vaccinators’ as the Solution to Pandemic Challenges in Many Nations,” draws attention to WiRED’s Vaccinator Training Program (VTP) as detailed in the latest publication of the Journal of Southern California Clinicians.
What motivated WiRED to create the Vaccinator Training Program?
In answer, the CGU article quotes William Crano, a professor of psychology in CGU’s Division of Behavioral and Organizational Science. “Doctors and other medical staff are in short supply in many parts of the world. That scarcity doesn’t mean you give up on administering the vaccine there. Instead, you have to find a way around the problem, and that means looking to other people who can fill those roles.”
Consequently, WiRED developed a VTP curriculum — an expanded version of the World Health Organization’s program — designed to train ordinary community members as COVID-19 “citizen vaccinators.” Once vaccines are available, the VTP graduates, in teams led by medical professionals, will be able to teach communities about the virus, set up shot clinics, administer the jabs and monitor patients for any aftereffects — thus vastly multiplying the vaccinator corps in low-resource countries.
Read the entire CGU news article here.
Read more about WiRED’s VTP from its beginnings and its expansion to other countries:
Note: The WiRED International Center for Community and Global Health opened in June 2021. The Center offers CGU students and faculty opportunities in global and community health education, research and community service. Read more here.