Saturday, March 19, 2022

Women-Led Teams Vaccinating Families in Pakistan

 This week, I saw an article in NPR Goats and Soda (https://www.npr.org/sections/goatsandsoda/2022/03/05/1084228017/pakistan-has-a-big-idea-send-13-000-teams-led-by-women-to-vaccinate-the-hesitant) about a potential solution for vaccine hesitancy in Pakistan. This article describes how many people are vaccine hesitant simply because they are illiterate and do not know that the vaccine is available or because they have to work all day and it is nearly impossible for them to get the vaccine without skipping work.


The solution that Pakistan has pioneered is to assemble a team of women to go door-to-door in vulnerable communities across the country to offer the vaccine. The team is armed with vaccines from several different countries (the US, China) and explains the importance of the vaccine to each family. 


I think the strategy of choosing a women-only team is a very powerful and important one. It reminds me a bit of the ASHA worker system of female health workers that has been implemented in India. Several years prior to the pandemic, the Indian government decided to tackle the high levels of maternal and newborn mortality. They trained females from rural regions to handle basic maternal/newborn emergencies and helped them educate communities on best practices. The female-led teams made families feel very safe, and women from the communities were also empowered in the process, which I think is very important. In the case of this vaccination strategy in Pakistan, I do wonder if/how people would respond differently to an all-male team or a mixed gender team. I wonder if these female vaccinators face any barriers or sexism as they are going through communities.


-Sophia (Week 7)

1 comment:

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