A Covid Vaccine That Works For All

Light for the world is part of a global consortium of partners advocating for different disadvantaged groups to have access to the vaccine.  And one of the groups is people with disabilities. We had a conversation with our Disability Inclusion Facilitators to get their views on whether they would receive the Covid vaccine and what would influence that decision.

Q: What are your thoughts on the vaccine? Do you plan on getting the vaccine? Have you gotten the vaccine already? If you plan on getting the vaccine, what has convinced you? If you don’t want to get it, what are your reasons behind that?

Naomi: I am not planning to get the vaccine until I’m convinced enough to take it. I don’t feel I have enough information especially about the AstraZeneca vaccine which we are getting in Uganda. And we have heard stories where some people have been vaccinated and they die, and some people are suffering from blood clots. I need to be equipped with the right information about the medicine; how it works, its side effects, and everything else.

Sharon: Many people are skeptical about the vaccine because even the leaders in the community have not received the vaccine and yet we look to them as examples. That alone is bringing a lot of confusion in the community. If people at high levels are dodging what is supposed to be mandatory, it brings fear and uncertainty to the community. I am not even sure if I can take the vaccine.

Simon: I am ready to receive the vaccine any time because personally, I have some front-liners that have received this covid19 vaccine. One of them is my Member of Parliament in Nwoya County. He said the Covid vaccine side effects lasted for some 8 hrs but did not affect his daily work performance. This is proof for me that I can take it.

Allan: I decided to get vaccinated to protect myself from getting Covid19 because most importantly as a hearing-impaired person, I need a lot of social interaction. So, I need to protect myself when I’m interacting with other people. That is what convinced me to take the vaccine.

Q: What examples of misinformation have you heard or seen in your communities that have influenced how people with disabilities feel about getting the vaccine?

Naomi:  My friends who are similarly impaired (spinal cord injury) have chosen to not take the vaccine because they hear that taking it could potentially lower their immunity and kill them.

should be drafted directly to them so that we are not misled and miss chances of getting vaccinated.

Allan – People with hearing impairment are not talking much about the vaccine because they are uninformed. They are not sure when the vaccination is coming and nobody is giving them information about it, and most of them don’t even know what vaccination is. We are waiting for someone to come and explain everything about the vaccine.

Eric: Currently, we are listening to the news and every discussion around this vaccine; but the information is still not verified, and this worries people. I interacted with about 5 people with a visual impairment from 5 districts who were worried to even go for treatment to hospitals because they feared being vaccinated unknowingly since they don’t see.

Q: What do you think can be done to ensure that persons with disabilities in communities have enough information to make an informed decision before taking the vaccine?

Simon: The health fraternity should embark on serious awareness creation on the Covid19 vaccine because there is a lot of misinformation, especially at the grass-root level. They should clear the misinformation on the ground before the vaccine reaches the local people, including Persons with Disabilities, who are interested in getting the vaccine.

Allan: I think it’s very important for us DIFs to take an active interest in the process of administering and distribution of the vaccine; it is important for us also to train the Ministry of Health on issues concerning Persons with Disabilities before they can have the vaccination administered to them.

Denish: The first thing is to empower the Disability Inclusion Facilitators with the information about the vaccine so that we can package it for our fellow persons with disabilities to better understand the vaccine and make an informed decision on whether to take the vaccine or not.

So the whole overall thing here is about having the right information about the vaccine, if it is made available, we feel empowered to go for the vaccine, also to empower some other people with disabilities to decide whether to go for the vaccine or not.

Sharon:  We need to prioritize sharing the right information before we think of the vaccination. I’m not in a position to encourage someone to get vaccinated, because I cannot present to them the right information on the Covid vaccine. We need to make a strategy to get the right information from the Ministry of Health and with help of DIFs, share it with our target groups. Convincing people will be a challenge until the myths are dispelled and the right information is given.

Eric:  As we are doing these sensitizations, we should also speak to community thought leaders like the religious leaders. This is because community members listen and mostly do as directed by the thought leaders.

Secondly, since Disability Inclusion Facilitators are in different areas, we can come up with a statement bearing in it true information and circulate it to our partners, the community, the fraternity, and possibly the DPO network since we are working closely. This will ensure that even the men and women in the villages do not miss the information. We can also use radio talk shows at the different radio stations in different localities. A statement or two can be made in the local languages, giving that realistic information about the vaccine, this will dispel the misinformation, which is moving fast, compared to the right information.

Q: What’s the way forward, what can we do given our resources, our experience? What can we do to move this conversation forward in different spaces?

Naomi:  Having this discussion with persons with disabilities is the first step. Informing them about the vaccine, and why they should take it is key because if we are saying they’re a marginalized group of people, then they should be among the first people to get vaccinated. The same way we were told about the SOPs and we managed to obey is the same way we need to help persons with disabilities access information about the vaccines as well in my opinion.

Simon: I strongly encourage my fellow DIFs to reach out to our fellow persons with disabilities and provide them with the right information as passed by the Ministry of Health because we know that knowledge is power.

Q: Do you see a need to advocate for people with disabilities to be considered high risk and why?

Naomi: I think persons with disabilities should be in the high-risk category because this is a group of people who might need assistance at some point in their lives. The SOPs were not inclusive for persons with disabilities. I am a wheelchair user, I sometimes have an assistant who grabs my chair but when I don’t, I grab it myself when I’m propelling it to open doors. We are at high risk because of our levels of exposure; I would say my risk is twice that of an able-bodied person so it means I can catch the virus anytime.

Sharon:  I think our need to advocate depends on the communities, and on the government’s commitment to avail the right information. We cannot just rush to encourage our brothers with disabilities to decide on the vaccination, yet we cannot present clear facts about the effects on persons with disabilities. What is scaring people is basically the side effects.

Eric: Persons with disabilities should be considered a high-risk group, for example, persons with visual impairment work a lot with the sense of touch, and we move/work with personal assistants who also have to touch many surfaces; so they are high risk.