At least 5,000 teachers in North Kerala districts of Kasargod and Malappuram have stayed away from COVID vaccines citing religious beliefs. Malappuram and Kasargod are Muslim dominated districts in Kerala where Malappuram has over 70% Muslim residents.
As per reports, about 5,000 school teachers and non-teaching staff have not taken a single dose of Coronavirus vaccines citing religious beliefs and poor health, the Kerala state education minister V Sivankutty said. He said that there is standing instructions that unvaccinated teachers will not be allowed to take classes. He said these teachers will be given some more time to get themselves vaccinated before any action is taken against them.
According to officials, most of these unvaccinated teachers have not even attended offline classes. Administration has been trying to get rid of vaccine hesitancy amongst teachers and are also trying to get religious leaders to step in and educate teachers about vaccines and help them understand the importance of coronavirus vaccines.
As of now, the state education department does not have the data of teachers who have not been inoculated. Most teachers have cited religious beliefs as the reason to not get vaccinated.
Vaccine hesitancy amongst Muslims in Kerala
According to COWIN dashboard, as of today, Kerala has administered a total of 4,26,88,538 doses of which about 1,70,36,736 have been administered both the doses. Recent surveys have showed that significant chunks of the Muslim population do not trust vaccines and vaccination rates for the community was far lesser than that for Hindus. In fact, a January 2020 report states how nearly 5 lakh children had missed polio vaccines in Kerala while Muslim majority Malappuram saw only 54% vaccination. It is pertinent to note that Malappuram in Kerala has one of the highest concentration of Muslim population and according to Census data nearly 70% of residents of the district are Muslims.
Meanwhile, Kerala continues to be the state that contributes the highest number of new active coronavirus cases in India. As per Ministry of Health and Family Welfare, on Sunday, Kerala clocked in 1,500 new cases while the total number of new cases in India stood at 1,832.
