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A30 world news
Diabierna 15 OctOber 2021

Women left behind: Gender gap emerges in Africa’s vaccines

(AP) — The health outreach on gender breakdown of vaccine dis-
workers who drove past Lama tribution are lacking globally, experts
Mballow’s village with a mega- see a growing number of women in
phone handed out T-shirts em- Africa’s poorest countries consistent-
blazoned with the words: “I GOT ly missing out on vaccines. Officials
MY COVID-19 VACCINE!” who already bemoan the inequity of
vaccine distribution between rich and
By then, the women in Sare Gibel poor nations now fear that the stark
already had heard the rumors on so- gender disparity means African wom-
cial media: The vaccines could make en are the least vaccinated population
your blood stop or cause you to mis- in the world.
carry. Women who took it wouldn’t
get pregnant again. “We do see, unfortunately, that even
as COVID vaccines arrive in Africa
Lama Mballow and her sister-in-law, after a long delay, women are being
Fatoumata Mballow, never made the left behind,” said Dr. Abdahalah Zi-
3.4-mile trip (5.5 kilometers) to town raba, an epidemiologist at the Afri-
for their vaccines, but the family kept can Population and Health Research
the free shirt. Its lettering is now well- Center. “This could mean they will
worn from washing, but the women’s suffer a heavier toll during the pan-
resolve has not softened. They share demic.” news into local languages.
much — meal preparation duties, Jarju, 53, isn’t willing to be vaccinated
child care, trips to the well with plas- The spread of vaccine misinforma- Officials also confronted a deep mis- against COVID-19 if it means miss-
tic jugs, and their outlook on the vac- tion is in large part to blame for the trust of government and a belief that ing even a day’s work. Her husband
cine. gender gap, officials say. Delays in Africans were getting shots no one died a decade ago, leaving her alone
getting vaccines to impoverished else wanted. Rumors swirled that the to provide for her seven children and
“I definitely need a lot of children,” countries allowed misinformation vaccine was designed to control the three grandchildren.
said Lama Mballow, 24, who has a to flourish, even in outlying villages continent’s birth rate.
4-year-old son, another child on the where few people own smart phones. “Every day I am running up and
way and no plans to get vaccinated af- And with female literacy a challenge Health officials have since made down to make ends meet. If I go and
ter giving birth. And Fatoumata Mbal- across Africa, women have long relied strides getting Gambian women vac- take the vaccine, it will be a problem
low, 29, struggling to get pregnant for on word of mouth for information. cinated; they now make up about 53 for me,” said Jarju, who often doesn’t
a third time in a village where some percent of those who’ve had the jabs, make it home until dark, washing
women have as many as 10 children, Despite the rampant concerns about up several percentage points from just dishes before finally heading to bed,
quietly insists: “I don’t want to make pregnancy and fertility, there is no a few months ago. But there’s been ready to repeat her routine the next
it worse and destroy my womb.” evidence that vaccines affect a wom- a lag among those of child-bearing day. “If my arm gets heavy and I can’t
an’s chances of getting pregnant. The age, despite how frequently they’re in go to the water, who will feed my
As health officials in Gambia and U.S. Centers for Disease Control and contact with maternity clinic work- children?”
across Africa urge women to be vac- Prevention tracked tens of thousands ers.
cinated, they’ve confronted unwill- of immunized women and found no Jarju said she’s gotten other vaccines,
ingness among those of childbearing difference in their pregnancy out- Across Africa, officials report similar but has yet to make the 25-minute
age. Many women worry that current comes. The CDC, World Health trends despite lacking wider data. In trek on foot to the nearest clinic for
or future pregnancies will be threat- Organization, and other agencies rec- South Sudan, Gabon and Somalia, her COVID-19 shot.
ened, and in Africa, the success of a ommend pregnant women get vacci- fewer than 30% of those who re-
woman’s marriage often depends on nated because they’re at higher risk of ceived at least one dose in the early “Maybe later,” she demurred, head-
the number of children she bears. severe disease and death. stages of COVID-19 immunization ing off to prepare dinner with her
Other women say they’re simply campaigns were women. share of the day’s catch.
more afraid of the vaccine than the In Gambia, like many African coun-
virus: As breadwinners, they can’t tries, AstraZeneca was the only vac- In those countries — as elsewhere in Only about half of the world’s 200
miss a day of work if side effects such cine available initially. Widespread the world, especially impoverished countries and regions have reported
as fatigue and fever briefly sideline publicity of the links between that nations in parts of the Middle East COVID-19 vaccine data by gender,
them. shot and rare blood clots in women and Asia — women face other ob- according to a global tracker at Uni-
during a fumbled rollout in Europe stacles accessing vaccines. Some need versity College London. But since
Their fears are hardly exceptional, set back vaccination efforts. Many their husbands’ permission, or they similar scenes play out across this
with rumors proliferating across Af- Gambians believed the shot would lack technology to make appoint- country of 2.2 million people and its
rica, where fewer than 4% of the pop- stop their blood from flowing alto- ments, or vaccine prioritization lists neighboring nations, experts fear the
ulation is immunized. Although data gether, thanks to poor translation of simply didn’t include them. worst for women in these impover-
ished countries.
Dr. Roopa Dhatt, assistant professor
at Georgetown University Medical “In most countries in the world, we
Center, said it’s not surprising Afri- just don’t have the data to tell us if
can women have been left behind, there is a COVID-19 gender di-
but addressing the problem is urgent. vide,” said Sarah Hawkes, director
“If they do not get vaccinated at the of the Centre for Gender and Global
same rate as men, they will become Health at UCL. “But the few num-
this pocket for COVID-19, and it will bers that we do have suggest that it’s
make it more difficult for all of us to a problem.”
get out of the pandemic,” she said.

In Gambia, many women begin Gambia’s fate has been intertwined
their day at dawn by starting a fire with that of its much larger West Af-
to cook breakfast, so Lucy Jarju rises rican neighbor Senegal, which com-
and makes her way to the river after pletely envelops the tiny enclave of
morning chores. She and other wom- a nation except for the coast. Most
en spend hours paddling small boats foreigners arrive by land at check-
on the open water in search of dinner. points where no proof of negative
The oysters, crab or small fish that are COVID-19 results are needed, which
left uneaten will be sold, making up allowed the virus to intensify as Sen-
the bulk of their household income. egal faced a crushing third wave.