Togo: Ayabavi Bébé Mayikou gets vaccinated against COVID-19 and raises other women’s awareness

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Ayabavi Bébé Mayikou lives with her four children in Doumakpoè, two kilometres from the town of Vogan in southern Togo. In March 2021, Mrs. Mayikou was vaccinated against COVID-19 to protect herself and those around her. 

The forty-year-old decided to be vaccinated because of the government’s vaccine promotion campaign, which Mrs. Mayikou says she trusted. 

She explains, “I don’t see why the government would want to kill us, as many people think.”

Unfortunately, Mrs. Mayikou’s choice to be vaccinated quickly resulted in people from her community who believe false information about COVID-19 stigmatizing her.

She says, “Sometimes it’s name calling and insults. They call me a ‘sellout’ …. and they wrongly tell me that the vaccine kills people.”

Despite the resistance she faces, Mrs. Mayikou knows that the vaccine protects people against severe illness, hospitalization, and death because of COVID-19. 

To help change minds in her community, Mrs. Mayikou now works as the president of a neighbourhood development committee to raise awareness about the merits of vaccination against COVID-19. 

She is determined to help her community learn more about COVID-19 vaccines and the need to get vaccinated, especially for pregnant women.

Mrs. Mayikou explains: “Many pregnant women are not getting vaccinated because they are afraid for their baby—or sometimes [because] they get the wrong advice from their family and friends. I try to help pregnant women understand that getting vaccinated against COVID-19 is quite important to ensure the baby’s good health.”

Mrs. Mayikou has good reason. According to the World Health Organization, it’s important for pregnant women to get vaccinated because, during pregnancy, they are at higher risk of severe illness from COVID-19. When pregnant women are infected with COVID-19, they are also at higher risk of delivering their baby prematurely or having complications. Getting vaccinated against COVID-19 is a safe and proven way for pregnant women to reduce these risks.

Mrs. Mayikou shares information like this, and more, to raise awareness at neighbourhood development committee meetings, as well as at larger community events.  

According to Mrs. Mayikou, the work is starting to pay off. Many of her fellow members on the neighbourhood development committee say that her advice encouraged them to get vaccinated to protect themselves against COVID-19.

Winnie Byanyima is the Executive Director of UNAIDS. She says that, in a context of fear and uncertainty, stigma and discrimination like Mrs. Mayikou experienced are common. She says that distrust of the COVID-19 vaccine is also due to the huge amount of misinformation online, and especially on social media.

Yayra Gameli works at a local NGO called Young Volunteers for the Environment. She says that Mrs. Mayikou suffered from prejudice because of uncertainties and fear in the community about COVID-19 vaccines. She says this situation is unfortunately common in Togo, and believes that lack of reliable information about the vaccines only makes the situation worse.

Mrs. Gameli was one of the many women who decided to get vaccinated against COVID-19 thanks to Mrs. Mayikou’s efforts.  

She explains: “It was not easy for me and the women in our committee to go and get vaccinated. The continued cases and deaths because of COVID-19 were not motivating. But when we listened to Mrs. Mayikou talk, and saw how she was a role model, we finally agreed.”

This resource is funded by the Government of Canada through Global Affairs Canada as part of the Life -saving Public Health and Vaccine Communication at Scale in sub-Saharan Africa (or VACS) project.

Photo: Woman getting vaccinated. Ghana. Credi: Curt Carnemark for the World Bank.