Skip to main content

India's rural population afraid of coronavirus test and vaccination

 


A health worker (right) speaks to a family during a coronavirus vaccine awareness campaign in Kalwa village, Haryana state, India. Photo: AFP

When health worker Neelam Kumari knocks on doors in Indian villages the occupants sometimes run out the back, terrified that she wants to vaccinate them against Covid-19. With India's devastating recent virus surge easing in cities, the deadly pandemic is ravaging the vast poverty-stricken rural hinterland. But here, ignorance and fear rule.

 "A lot of people in my village don't want to take the vaccine. They fear that they will die if they take it," Kumari told AFP in Dhatrath, a collection of two-story buildings in Haryana state with buffaloes wandering the streets."One of the villagers was so angry that he beat up a (health) worker who was trying to convince him to take the vaccine."

Just 15 percent of people in rural areas, compared with 30 percent in towns and cities have received at least one vaccine dose so far -- even though two-thirds of cases are being reported in the countryside, according to an analysis by The Hindu daily. Rumors are shared online or spread through messaging apps like WhatsApp. Fears that 5G causes Covid-19 led to mobile towers being attacked in Haryana.

"People do not even step forward for testing as they think the government will declare them Covid-positive even if they are not," Shoeb Ali, a doctor in Miyaganj village in the northern state of Uttar Pradesh, told AFP.

- 'Deaths after shots' -

This fear pervades despite the sight of bodies dumped in rivers and hundreds of shallow graves suggesting that Covid-19 is raging in India's hinterland where 70 percent of the 1.3-billion population lives. In Nuran Khera village in Haryana, residents are reluctant to get inoculated even though they said many households reported having fever -- and dozens of people dying.

 "Even after opening up a vaccine center here, nobody is ready to take it," villager Rajesh Kumar, 45, told AFP."I won't take the vaccine because it has many side effects. People get sick after getting vaccines."In other states, reports have emerged of people jumping into rivers or fleeing into forests just to escape mobile health teams.

Hom Kumari, a health worker at Bhatau Jamalpur village in Uttar Pradesh, said some locals seemed impossible to convince."What do we tell someone who says, 'If I'm destined to live, I will, even without the vaccine'?," she asked.

Health facilities are also few and far between and some people believe that going to a public hospital is more dangerous than staying away."People who went to hospital never came back," another villager in Nuran Khera, who gave his first name as Kuldip, told AFP.

Kumar said that when his wife fell sick, a private clinic wanted 50,000 rupees ($700) in advance to treat her. A doctor at a public hospital said to take her home." My neighbors started saying she has corona. They were frightened," he added. "I took care of her and on the third day she was back on her feet."

Virus has also dealt the Indian economy a heavy blow, and villagers are often more worried about making ends meet, said community health specialist Rajib Dasgupta."It's extremely difficult to communicate why vaccination is important until some of those distressed conditions are alleviated," Dasgupta told AFP.

Experts say that India needs to apply the lessons learned in its polio vaccination campaign in the 2000s for children under five. The program succeeded after trusted community leaders were involved to spread the message to parents that inoculation was safe.

 Using a similar approach, religious leaders in Uttar Pradesh were recently called in to encourage their followers to get vaccinated for coronavirus. Navneet Singh, who oversees immunization efforts in Haryana's Jind district, says that face-to-face communication had helped ensure that nearly 70 percent of over-45s in Kalwa and neighboring villages have received at least one shot.

Kalwa health worker Sheela Devi said her "heart was pounding" when her name was included in the vaccination list, but she was reassured when she saw the local doctor getting the shot. Now she works every day in the village, going door-to-door trying to talk people around, with some success.

"Gradually they were convinced that even if they get corona after getting vaccinated, they won't need hospitalization. They can take medicines and recover at home," the 45-year-old told AFP.

 


Comments

Popular posts from this blog

After Pandemic- Auckland stands out as most liveable country

  The pandemic has shaken up the rankings of the world´s most liveable cities, a study released on Wednesday showed, with metropolises in Australia, Japan and New Zealand leaping ahead of those in Europe. Auckland tops The Economist´s annual survey of the world´s most liveable cities in 2021 followed by Osaka and Tokyo in Japan, Adelaide in Australia and Wellington in New Zealand, all of which had a swift response to the Covid pandemic. "Auckland rose to the top of the ranking owing to its successful the approach in containing the Covid-19 pandemic, which allowed its society to remain open and the city to score strongly," the Economist Intelligence Unit said. In contrast, "European cities fared particularly poorly in this year´s edition." "Vienna, previously the world´s most liveable city between 2018-20, fell to 12th. Eight of the top ten biggest falls in the rankings are European cities," according to the study. The biggest fall overall among t...

Apple announces new iphone privacy

  Apple on Monday said it is ramping up privacy and expanding features in new iPhone operating software to be released later this year. The Silicon Valley technology colossus opened its annual developers conference by teasing improvements to security, privacy and interoperability of its devices, even as the company remains under fire for its tight control of its App Store. "All of this incredible software will be available to all of our users this fall," Apple chief executive Tim Cook said during the Worldwide Developers Conference opening presentation. "I am so excited for these new releases and how they will make our products even more powerful and more capable." The next version of iPhone operating software, called iOS 15, will have improved privacy features including overviews of how apps access smartphone cameras or microphones as well as data such as location or contacts. "We don´t think you should have to make a trade-off between great featu...

Violence against Palestinians triggered 'uncomfortable' Israel-UAE conversations

  Fleur Hassan-Nahoum, co-founder of the UAE-Israel Business Council and deputy mayor of Jerusalem, poses for a photo during an interview with AFP in the Gulf emirate of Dubai on June 3, 2021.Photo: AFP  The violence by Israel in Gaza created "uncomfortable conversations " between business partners from UAE and Israel months after the two countries recognised each other, the deputy mayor of Jerusalem told AFP. But the conversations were "open" and "everybody was very moderate and understanding", Fleur Hassan-Nahoum said. Speaking on the sidelines of a bilateral investment conference in Dubai, Hassan-Nahoum, co-founder of the UAE-Israel Business Council, also expressed hope that trade between the two countries would exceed the billion-dollar mark in the coming year. The UAE in 2020 became only the third Arab country to establish full ties with Israel, under a Washington-backed deal condemned by the Palestinians. The two sides have since announced a string o...