By Charles Lotara

When South Sudan received its first and second batches of the COVID-19 AstraZeneca vaccine, more than half of the people who turned up for the jab were males, accounting for 61 percent of the total population inoculated at the inception of the vaccine rollout.

On the contrary, only 38.5 percent of women turned up for the jab. The gap was enormous thanks to misinformation about vaccines that they cause female infertility.

In September this year, the Ministry of Health made a courtesy call on women to defy misinformation and turn up for the jab.

“I want to make a call to women out there that Johnson and Johnson and AstraZeneca are safe and effective vaccines against COVID-19 prevention,” said Dr. Victoria Anib Majur, the Undersecretary at the Ministry of Health at the time.

“I want to encourage you not to listen to rumors out there that the vaccines cause infertility; the vaccines do not cause infertility,” she added.

Her call did not make an impact on women to take particularly the AstraZeneca vaccine. However, the supply of the Johnson and Johnson vaccine has seen a change of perception on COVID-19 vaccines.

Data obtained from the Ministry of Health reveals that 43.7 percent of those who are fully vaccinated between 8^th October and 18^th November are women. Men accounted for 56.3 percent during this phase of vaccine inoculation.

The updated action report from the Ministry of Health shows that as of 25^th November, the percentage of men turning up for vaccines tumbled further with 54.5% getting the jab while the number of women inoculated increased by 1.8 percent.

On 6^th December, the Ministry of Health reported that the vaccine uptake among women rose to 46.3 percent compared to 53.7 percent of their male counterparts.

The total number of people fully vaccinated to date is 139,364 with 33,006 receiving two AstraZeneca vaccine doses, and 106,358 with single-dose J&J vaccine.

In the first week of December, the government announced that vaccination facilities in Juba had run out of the J&J doses while inoculation centres at state levels were yet to finish their shares.

With the government receiving additional 168,000 doses of the J&J vaccine on 10^th December, statistics indicate that the percentage of women getting vaccinated could surpass that of men.

Change of perception

The increase in the number of women turning for vaccines has been attributed to a change of perception on the vaccine. At least two in five women encourage taking vaccines saying it is just as safe as immunization vaccines given to children.

“I see nothing wrong with taking it. It’s funny that there are parents who take their children for immunization but they don’t want to get vaccinated themselves. These vaccines come from the same manufacturer,” Ayot Nyibol said from the vaccination center. She’s one of the women who turned up for the vaccine.

About the Authors:

Charles Lotara, a Data Speaks Fellow at #defyhatenow South Sudan, wrote this data story, which was edited by 211 Check Editor Emmanuel Bida Thomas and approved for publication by Steve Topua, Data Analyst and Trainer. It’s part of the ongoing #defyhatenow South Sudan Data Speaks Fellowship program with funding from the European Union Delegation to South Sudan.

About South Sudan Data Speaks Fellowship: 

This is a three months data journalism fellowship for South Sudanese content creators with an aim of educating participants on the fundamentals of data journalism through in-depth training facilitated by experienced data analysts.

The fellows have been selected from across South Sudan and they are trained in data sourcing/mining, data analysis, and data visualization for three months (October to December) 

Each fellow will produce a minimum of three (03) data stories during the fellowship. The focus will be on increasing access to information

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