Missing Females: Underreporting of COVID-19 Cases Among Women Shows A Persistent And Global Problem

In the healthcare sector, relevant and accurate data has become everything. Public health across the globe can be tremendously improved with the help of accurate and timely data. But data on women’s health has always remained in the dark. Several surveys and reports have repeatedly shown that “Missing Women,” a term coined by Indian economist Amartya Sen, is a global problem. This underreporting of females has come to light yet again. A recent research study has demonstrated that many countries have failed to report female infections throughout the pandemic equally.

In a fast-paced, digital world, data becomes essential at each step. Developing a blind spot for continued underreporting adds to the “normalisation” of men representing the entire population’s health. The missing data is a significant impediment to a country’s holistic development and improvement in overall health. It is now that the world should turn towards addressing and filling in the data gap; otherwise, we would fail to produce better outcomes for women’s health.