WUNRN
Ebola
Virus Risks & Cases Highest for Women
In Freetown, the capital of Sierra Leone, where the Ebola disease has struck with ferocity, a pregnant woman walks herself to a waiting ambulance as people watch from afar, afraid to be near her, attesting to the severe stigma attached to anyone who might need medical attention. This photo, taken on Sept. 19, 2014, follows with others, below, as the woman was forced to leave her home during the recent three-day lockdown in the capital to help isolate Ebola cases and to enable medical care for those who might be at risk. TANYA BINDRA/UNICEF
By Sierra Ortega - September 23, 2014
The United Nations has been
almost the sole international body to ring any alarm bells about the
disproportionate effect of the Ebola disease outbreak on women and children,
where it has found that up to 75 percent of reported cases are women and
approximately 2.5 million children under 5 years old live in Ebola-affected
areas. The disease is centered in
Humanitarian workers attribute
the disproportionately high numbers of women affected to their traditional role
as caregivers, noting that they are more likely to care for sick family members
— cooking and serving food, cleaning the sick and washing their clothes —
putting them at heightened risk for infection.
Women are also more likely to
work as nurses, midwives, cleaners and cross-border traders — all careers that
the UN has identified as being particularly risky for Ebola transmission. The
three countries affected the most all share borders, though some have been
closed.
Moreover, women in hospitals
and health clinics in the region rarely get the same support and protection
that doctors — most of whom are men — receive, making this disease another
discriminatory lob against women.
“This was not targeted at
[women], but it came as a result of the roles they were playing,” Josephine
Odera, the UN Women regional director in West and
The UN estimates that 2.5
million children under 5 years old live in areas affected by Ebola. Besides the
risk of contracting the disease, children face the painful burden of losing
parents and other relatives who might tend to them. The outbreak has also led
to school closures across the affected countries and has severely disrupted
health services, leaving many children without schooling and routine care,
including vaccinations. The disruptions in health care systems — which are
already heavily taxed with too many patients and too few beds — have also
limited access to maternal and newborn care and created tremendous stigma and
barriers for pregnant women, who need to go to clinics but can become
untouchables in society if they are seen visiting these centers.
In countries
hit by Ebola, women are disproportionately affected by the disease far more
than men, says the United Nations, since women are generally the main caregivers
at home for the sick and nurses or cleaners at hospitals, receiving far less
support than doctors, who are primarily men. Here, the
“Transmission requires close
contact with bodily fluids of an infected person, as can occur during health
care procedures, home care or traditional burial practices, which involve the
close contact of family members and friends with bodies,” Gregory Hartl, a media
officer for the World Health Organization, wrote in an email. “In
“Many families hide infected
loved ones on their homes,” Hartl added. “As Ebola has no cure, some believe
[they] will be more comfortable dying at home.”
In a report by Martha Anker for the World
Health Organization in 2011, about taking into account gender in infectious
disease programs, she wrote that in almost all societies, “women are
responsible for the care of family members when they fall ill.” And that their
“close contact with sick family members exposes them to pathogens that are
spread from person to person,” creating an important transmission pathway for
new pathogens.
Overall, the World Health
Organization’s most recent count for the disease has found more than 5,500
people infected and about 2,630 people dead, primarily in
The United States Centers for
Disease Control and Prevention said this week in a telephone conference call
that
The UN passed
a Security Council resolution in September 2014, led by the United States, to
draw attention to the Ebola disease as an international threat to peace and
security, but the fact that women bear the biggest brunt in the outbreak has
been far overlooked by relevant institutions. Little was said about women in
the resolution. TANYA BINDRA/UNICEF
Yet just a few organizations
working on the Ebola response refer directly to the toll the disease is
exacting on women. At an emergency session led by the US this month at the UN
Security Council on the peace and security threat of Ebola, 45 countries spoke,
but just a handful — Australia, Britain and Liberia, among them — mentioned the
disproportionate effects on women, with some of these countries citing 70
percent of the cases falling on women.
The council passed a resolution
encouraging nations to increase support to the countries that are affected and
for those countries to pay special attention to the needs of women when
crafting response mechanisms. Nevertheless, the red flag for women in the
document was so small it would be easy to read past it: “Expressing concern [resolution's
italics] about the particular impact of the Ebola outbreak on women.”
Caroline Kiarie, a grant-making
officer at Urgent Action Fund,
Dulcie Leimbach contributed reporting to this article.
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