was the constant refrain heard by gender and women's health experts working in the 2014/16 Ebola response. This was an emergency and the main thing was to deal with the crisis.
It was the Guinea, Liberia and Sierra Leone outbreak of Ebola that signalled what was to come for women around the world in the COVID-19 outbreak. Quarantines saw a rise in domestic and intimate partner violence. Girls were banned from school when they returned pregnant. Fear of health centres and hospitals and closures led to increases in other health issues. More women died from maternal mortality than from Ebola.
In early 2020 I worked with women around the world to raise the flag of the potential gendered impact of COVID-19. But few people wanted to listen. No time for that. As with Ebola, it is often only when the harm is done that people working on the response realise two crucial things. First, health emergencies do immediate and long term harm to women, disproportionately. And second, women are essential to responding to health emergencies.
