India’s Covid gender gap: women left behind in vaccination drive

Misinformation and access issues combined with patriarchal social norms fuelling disparity in distribution across most states

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Deep-rooted structural inequalities and patriarchal values are to blame for India's worrying Covid vaccine gender gap, campaigners and academics have warned.

As of 25 June, of the 309m Covid vaccine doses delivered since January 2021, 143m were administered to women compared with nearly 167m to men, according to CoWin, India's national statistics site - a ratio of 856 doses given to women for every 1,000 given to men. The difference is not accounted for by India's gender imbalance of 924 women to 1,000 men.