British Somali doctor's mission to get her London community vaccinated

A British Somali doctor is urging members of the Somali community to get vaccinated.

Doctor Farah Bede, a doctor in London's Tower Hamlets, has made a series of videos in Somali to encourage London's 65,333-strong Somali community to attend for inoculations.

She was one of the first medics to realise the potentially disproportionate impact of the pandemic on the community.

"I work in an area with a high prevalence of illness and poverty, so I knew that my patients would be disproportionately affected," she told My London.

Last March she began hosting webinars on Covid-19.

“Somalis in London are an underserved community whose needs haven’t fully been catered for," she said.

"They feel the services that have been set up are not tailored to fit their unique needs which has led to mistrust and widening health inequalities. Existing medical services are not bespoke enough.

"We need to understand what their particular needs are so we can treat them better, like offering culturally sensitive information in their mother tongue, as well as supporting primary care to offer more vaccines in surgeries as patient’s trust their GPs."

She is presently conducting a study to understand the effects of the pandemic on Somalis in the East End of London.

"We're a minority within a minority. Despite the fact that we have specific needs, the data on the Somali community isn't there to create bespoke services," she added.

Doctors and faith leaders across the UK have been working together in a bid to tackle the low uptake of Covid-19 vaccines by ethnic minorities after more than half have refused it in some areas.

Medics and imams are hoping to dispel myths circulating in some communities by setting up pop-up vaccine centres in mosques.

In August, Public Health England research found the risk of dying among those diagnosed with Covid-19 was higher in several ethnic groups than among white British people.

The vaccines minister Nadhim Zahaw last week warned Covid-19 could spread “like wildfire” among communities where large numbers of people refuse to be vaccinated.

The Royal College of General Practitioners has also called for a high-profile national campaign to encourage ethnic communities to have the vaccine.

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