COVID-19: Over 100 Deaf Women Receive Vaccine In Abuja

Over 100 women with hearing impairment has against all myths accepted to be vaccinated against the novel Coronavirus popularly called Covid-19.

The Founder and Chief Executive Officer (CEO) of the Deaf Women Aloud Initiative (DWAI) Hellen Beyioku-Alase disclosed this on Tuesday during the vaccination exercise held at the Trauma Center, National Hospital, Abuja.

Beyioku-Alase noted that "Health is Wealth" regretting however that access to healthcare has remained a major challenge for the deaf due to the communication barrier and attitude of health workers in the country.

She said DWAI decided to organise a seminar for deaf women where issues and myths around the Covid19 vaccination were discussed and health workers made available for them to take the jab.

She said, "Vaccination is ongoing and the deaf doesn't know about it so we decided to conduct outreach so that they can be vaccinated. We also did HIV tests, BP etc because they lack health information which makes lots of them die in silence.

"We have close to one hundred women here and some who are not here presently have shown interest in taking the vaccine. Our goal is to leave no one behind so we planned to break this barrier, we informed women from the six area councils in Abuja to meet up and access the vaccine and we are happy they are here today," she said.

Speaking on the exercise, the Founder, Maternal Adolescent Reproductive Care Health (MARCH) initiative Comrade Lawal-Aiyedun Olubunmi, said it is important to take healthcare to the doorsteps of vulnerable people if universal health coverage must be achieved.

"Everyone must be included just as Boss Mustapha said, by 2022 all Nigerians should be vaccinated.

The group accepted the vaccine and it is very important we encourage them on healthy living.

"Nigeria is for everyone and the government must provide healthcare services for everyone and that is why we strategically choose a national hospital because we want the government to make provision for sign language to cater for the deaf.

"We must appreciate the small wins of the government and encourage them to do more, there should be the presence of PWD in all discussions of covid-19, and in line with the target of the government to have 70% citizens vaccinated in 2022

We are reaching out to people so that we can scale up the vaccination of PWD," she said.