COVID-19 Vaccine Hesitancy: Sharing ‘ Real-Time ’ Data, Consistent, Simple Messaging Helps

Aradhiya Khan, 25, a transwoman, got her vaccination in the middle of the night in July 2021, when the centre was less crowded, and stood in the women's line as there was none for her gender. By Zofeen EbrahimKARACHI, Oct 31 2023 (IPS) After months of warding off appeals from his employers to get vaccinated for the COVID-19 disease, Mohammad Yusuf, 24, working as a live-in domestic worker in Karachi’s Clifton area, finally relented and got his first shot. “I believed that anyone who took the vaccine would die within two years,” he told IPS. He said he got this information from social media. The people who finally convinced him were his parents living in the village of Rahil, in Sindh’s province of Umerkot district, where, according to Yusuf, “not a single case of COVID-19 has to date been found.” But because Karachi was rife with the virus then, his parents explained that he might catch the infection if he remained unvaccinated. The other reason for his hesitancy was the fear that if he got COVID-19 and was hospitalized, he may die without saying goodbye to his family and be buried unceremoniously by strangers. “You either got well within ten days, or you’d die a very difficult and painful death with breathlessness, high fever, and then death,” is how he explained the disease and its symptoms. Rakhi Matan, 40, a caretaker for the elderly, had heard, “If someone got COVID-19, the government would come and pick them up from their home and take them to a cent...
Source: IPS Inter Press Service - Health - Category: International Medicine & Public Health Authors: Tags: Asia-Pacific COVID-19 Development & Aid Education Featured Headlines Health Human Rights TerraViva United Nations IPS UN Bureau IPS UN Bureau Report Pakistan Source Type: news