Teach and preach: A pastor’s role in reducing risk of death and suffering from COVID-19

Meet Pastor Laibot Mbika. Pastor Laibot is one of many people of faith who has helped reduce the risk of COVID-19 illness and deaths in Zambia through effective community engagement.

Pastor Laibot serves an active community of Christian Apostolic Zionists in the Mumbwa district of Zambia’s Central Province. He says, “My role is to teach and preach. When we heard about COVID-19 from our health workers, we all got concerned.”

In 2021 hundreds of Zambians were dying of COVID-19 every week. Today there are weeks in which no one dies from COVID-19. This is due to the Ministry of Health’s successful  COVID-19 vaccination campaigns in 2022 and 2023.Today eight out of every ten Zambians aged twelve or older have received at least one dose of the COVID-19 vaccine, thus protecting them against getting infected.

Pastor Laibot is one of the thousands of teachers, and community and religious leaders who actively shared clear and accurate information about the COVID-19 vaccine to urge their communities to get vaccinated. These leaders communicated in local languages, correcting misinformation and myths, and answering  questions about the COVID-19 vaccine in the context of people’s religious beliefs.

Pastor Laibot received information about COVID 19  vaccines from the USAID DISCOVER-Health project, implemented by JSI. He listened to the health workers’ explanation of the science behind the  infection and learned how the entire community was vulnerable. “I understood that we had an obligation to help by not only focusing on ourselves but also the community  we live in”, Laibot said.

Pastor Laibot invited the health workers to join a service at his independent Christian Apostolic Zionist Church and to talk to the congregants from Mumbwa’s Maimwene community.

“I liked the idea that they first sought permission with the leader as a gatekeeper before talking to my people,” Laibot explained. “I felt respected and acknowledged and talking to my people was not a problem.”

Pastor Laibot and other community leaders led the way, getting the COVID-19 vaccine themselves. Their congregants and community members quickly followed their lead. 

“We do not feel any stigma from the community members at all, if anything we are ambassadors and champions of the COVID-19 [vaccine],” Laibot explained.

Through the U.S. Agency for International Development, the American people have provided nearly 1.9 billion kwacha ($120 million) to respond to, prevent the spread of, and recover from the toll of COVID-19 in Zambia.  The United States provided  over 6.4 million COVID-19 vaccine doses with the people of Zambia free of cost. 

As of May 2023, the U.S. partnership with the Zambia Ministry of Health has helped  9,254,210 eligible people aged 12 and over get vaccinated for COVID-19 representing a vaccination rate of 85 percent, including 992,425 of eligible people in the Central Province representing a vaccination rate of 94 percent.