Page 24 - Msingi Afrika Magazine Issue 14

Leadership
Health & Healing

Vaccine Hesitancy

– The Pfizer Kano Case

Vaccine distrust is one legacy of unethical Big Pharma practices in Nigeria

Written by Mahdi Garba and Modupe Abidakun
Edited by Mercy Abang

This article was first published on 12th “It’s strange that I still remember her son with a speech and hearing
July, 2021 in: everything, even the color of the impairment.
https://unbiasthenews.org nurse’s uniform. There was a white “My son was six years old then. He
nurse who was in a brown skirt was ill and when I saw the symp-
In Kano State, Nigeria, vaccine hesitancy and green blouse, who directed the toms: fever and headache, they
is not only driven by conspiracy theories or Nigerian nurse to give him three looked like meningitis,” she tells
mistrust in science. As health advocates injections at a time and he did Unbias the News. “So, I took him to
struggle to fight disinformation about the exactly that while my son was on my a clinic– Asibitin Zana–where on ar-
COVID-19 vaccines, it is important to shoulders,” says Maryam*, speaking rival I saw a host of Nigerian nurses
remember that in some countries distrust in the local Hausa dialect. alongside other white people”.
stems not only from ignorance, but also
from lived experience. The mother of now 28-year-old Za- “Immediately after receiving the
kari, Hajiya Maryam, recounts how drugs, he became unconscious for
the Pfizer drug test in Kano left hours. On waking up, I noticed that

24 | we tell the true afrikan story