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Equity and accountability key for improving health of vulnerable groups

By Edith Mutethya in Nairobi, Kenya | chinadaily.com.cn | Updated: 2021-09-23 20:19

Vaccine equity and government accountability have been highlighted as key for improving health equity for women, children and adolescents in Sub-Saharan Africa, who are at risk of being left behind in the COVID-19 pandemic.

Delegates to a virtual summit held on Wednesday and hosted by the Partnership for Maternal, Newborn and Child Health, a global alliance for women's, children's and adolescents' health and well-being, agreed on the need for mutual accountability to deliver for these groups.

Winnie Byanyima, executive director of the Joint United Nations Programme on HIV/AIDS, said the surges of COVID-19 has exposed how differently men, women, girls and boys can be impacted by a pandemic.

She said even before the pandemic hit, Africa's health systems were already failing poor women, girls and children.

Byanyima added the debt service repayment of many African countries were mounting and crowding out expenditures on health, education and social protection.

She said low investment by governments has left the private sector as the option for many people, most of who can't afford the costs.

Byanyima said it's unfortunate many women have been detained in hospitals after delivery because they are unable to pay the bill.

"You give birth to somebody who is going to be part of the future labor force, you are committing to raise this child until they are adults and you are detained to a hospital bed to pay for delivering the baby," she said. "What an injustice to women and the baby."

Byanyima said global solidarity with financing as part of the plan, equal access to health technologies, medicines, vaccines and putting human rights and communities and women rights at the center, is key to winning the battle against COVID-19.

"HIV taught us without putting the human rights of everyone at the center of a response, we will never get there. And without putting communities at the center of a response, prevention, testing and treatment, we will not solve this problem," she said.

Natasha Kaoma, CEO of Copper Rose, a Zambia-based organization that works to deliver a world where adolescent's sexual reproductive health is made a priority, said there is a need to fund organizations such as corporals and youth mobilization, because young people have the power to speak and encourage things like vaccination.

"In Zambia, we want to use the power of the young people for accountability and speaking up about sexual reproductive health and the needs of young women," she said.

Kaoma said there is a need to go beyond mainstream media platforms in order to reach young people, noting in Zambia, only about 40 percent of the population have access to a radio and 37 percent have access to television.

"The use of traditional media platforms for young people does not work. There has been concentration on radio and television for airing school programs and dissemination of information, but young people are telling us they are not listening to those," she said.

Githinji Gitahi, global CEO of AMREF Health Africa, said vaccine inequity in Africa is affecting women, girls and children.

"The closures, the economic downturn, the inability for the informal sector to move on which is facilitated by absence of vaccination and the burden of healthcare costs is heavier on women, girls and adolescents. Therefore, every day we delay vaccine equity we increase the burden on women, girls and adolescents," Gitahi said.

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