"Not a white man's disease" - that's the message the Indigenous Affairs Minister is desperate to convey to vulnerable communities, where COVID-19 vaccination rates are lagging behind the rest of the country.
Figures released by the federal government show vaccination rates in Western Australia's Kimberley and Pilbara regions are languishing at 8.6 per cent - among the lowest in Australia and less than half the national average.
Community-controlled health services are working overtime to supply vaccines to remote communities, but in some cases, the message isn't getting through.
READ MORE: Man in his 20s dies of COVID-19 in Sydney
"People are hesitant because of social media. What they're reading is what anti-vaxxers are posting," Indigenous Affairs Minister Ken Wyatt told reporters in Canberra.
"The young ones are saying don't get vaccinated, it's a white man's disease. It's not."
In the current New South Wales outbreak, 27 Indigenous Australians have caught COVID-19, while there have been about 200 cases since the pandemic began.
READ MORE: NSW records 233 new local COVID-19 cases
Luckily, none have lost their lives.
"It's [the Delta strain] not exclusive to non-Indigenous Australians, we can also catch it, so hopefully that message permeates through our populations," Mr Wyatt said.
