15 October 2024 The essential ingredient of any vaccination programme? Women

    In a joint contribution for the Guardian, Dr Sania Nishtar, chief executive officer of Gavi, the Vaccine Alliance and Federal Minister Svenja Schulze call on leaders meeting at the World Health Summit to help remove all gender-related barriers to immunisation against diseases such as polio.

    When confronting diseases such as polio in Gaza and mpox outbreaks in some African countries, we must remember one of the biggest lessons ever learned in global health: women are essential to a solution.

    Look at polio – a highly infectious disease caused by the poliovirus, which can result in disability, paralysis or death. In most countries, vaccinators are predominantly women, and yet women may face barriers in delivering vaccine services due to sexual harassment and violence, unsafe working conditions, poor or irregular pay and heavy workload. [...]

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