THURROCK Council's drive to increase covid vacinations across the borough has seen its 'Community Health Champion's out and about to encourage communities to visit vaccination clinics and have the COVID-19 vaccine.

The council is working in partnership with Thurrock CVS to deploy its two 'champions' across areas of Thurrock ahead of World Immunisation Week 2022 (24-30 April).

two champions have already been working with residents living in lower-uptake areas of Thurrock to understand and resolve worries and help them get access to the COVID-19 vaccine. More champions are set to start in the borough in mid-May.

So far, the team has been introducing themselves to community members, shadowing other community workers and exploring lower-uptake areas to understand these communities. They've also been distributing information about how to access vaccines including signposting to clinic locations.

The champions have also been encouraging residents to attend clinics including weekly pop-up sites run by the NHS Essex Partnership University NHS Foundation Trust (EPUT). As part of this programme the vaccination bus will visit ASDA Tilbury on Thursday 28 April, IKEA Lakeside on Friday 29 April and South Essex College, Grays, on Saturday 30 April from 10am to 3pm.

World Immunisation Week is celebrated in the last week of April and supported by associations including the World Health Organisation. This year's theme is 'Long Life for All' which aims to promote the use and global importance of vaccines to protect people of all ages against disease, and ultimately from vaccine-preventable diseases.

 The champions are being funded by £485,000 of government funding which was awarded to the borough as part of the £22.5million national Community Vaccine Champions Scheme fund.