Remarks by WHO Regional Director for Africa, Dr Matshidiso Moeti
Good morning, good afternoon, bonjour and welcome to all the journalists and colleagues participating in this press conference today.
It is a great pleasure for me to be joined by Yvonne Chaka Chaka, the internationally renowned South African singer and humanitarian, philanthropist, health and rights advocate and my dear sister as well and by my colleague, Oulimata Sarr, Regional Director for UN Women West and Central Africa based in Dakar.
As we look forward to celebrating International Women’s Day next Monday under the theme “women in leadership: achieving an equal future in a COVID-19 world”, we will discuss how the COVID-19 pandemic has affected women in Africa.
On the African continent, there have now been more than 3.9 million cases of COVID-19 and sadly 104,000 people have died. Overall, the epidemic is still trending downwards in most countries on the continent after a second wave, but with pressures to ease restrictions, population fatigue in adhering to preventive measures, and the circulation of variants of concern, there is a real risk of cases increasing again in the future. In fact, we have seen an increasing trend in about 10 countries.
Our analysis of 28 countries’ distribution by sex finds on average that 41% of COVID-19 cases are women. Of course, this varies across countries.
This lower burden among women is likely due to a range of factors, including the findings of several studies that women are more likely than men to adhere to measures to prevent COVID-19.
Women have stepped-up to the challenge of this pandemic with courage and with compassion. They make up 70 per cent of the global health workforce, and many women are on the frontlines, especially as nurses and community health workers, and of course primary caregivers in families at home.
Women are showing impressive leadership in politics and the private sector. Heads of State, such as the New Zealand Prime Minister, the Right Honourable Jacinda Arden, other Heads of States who are women like the Prime Minister of Iceland, philanthropists like Toyin Saraki, trail blazers like Dr Awa Coll Seck, and innovators like Dr Ola Brown have mobilized strongly against COVID-19 and other priority health issues.
Unpaid care and domestic work, almost always done by women, has increased with school closures and stay-at-home orders, as have several risks. A WHO analysis conducted in 22 African countries found a rise in maternal deaths in 10 of them while nine reported a decline in births in health facilities and an increase in complications due to abortions.
So, COVID-19 is exacerbating inequities associated with gender in several key spheres of life and development. The work that many African women rely on for their livelihoods, for example, in areas such as personal care and in the informal sector, came to a standstill for several months in many countries due to the lockdowns.
So, at WHO we are working with governments to ensure the continuous delivery of essential gender-responsive services and we are providing training for health workers to support women suffering from, for example, gender-based violence, about which we will share more from my fellow panelists. This is an area where work across sectors is crucial. Men and women and social and economic development will benefit from gender equality and so we all need to invest in achieving it.
Turning then to an update on access to vaccines particularly through the COVAX facility. This week Africa has been at the forefront of COVAX vaccine deliveries finally with almost 10 million vaccine doses being delivered to 11 countries as of this morning.
We expect that around half of the African countries will receive COVAX deliveries in the coming week and that most countries will have vaccination programmes underway by the end of March.
I would like to appreciate His Excellency, President Nana Akufo-Addo, the President of Ghana for being among the first people in Ghana to get vaccinated, thus encouraging his fellow citizens to come forward when it is their turn and for his strong support in debunking misinformation and reiterating the importance of all public health measures to defeat COVID-19.
So, I’d like to thank you very much once again for joining us and I look forward to our discussion today.