COVID-19 Vaccine Hesitancy: All you need to know

As we know the whole world is battling with COVID-19 and vaccine is the only hope. In some parts of the world, the much awaited COVID-19 vaccination drive has started. Recently, several online surveys have been conducted regarding COVID-19 vaccine acceptance among the general population. 

What is Vaccine Hesitancy?

Vaccine Hesitancy refers to delay in acceptance or refusal of vaccines whether there is the availability of vaccination services. It is complex and context-specific in varying across time, place, and vaccines. Factors that it includes are complacency, convenience, and confidence.

Reasons behind Vaccine Hesitancy

Mis-information is the main issue with Vaccine Hesitancy. Other reasons can be:

- Religious propaganda: Some people think that the vaccine contains microbes, chemicals, and animal-derived products which are forbidden by religious laws.

- Vaccine derived diseases: It can be explained via example like Oral Polio Vaccine (OPV) contains weakened but live poliovirus. From the vaccine, this virus is excreted by immunised children which can move from one person to another. Due to this, the virus sticks around and mutates to a more virulent form which further raises the threat of vaccine-derived poliovirus (VDPV).

- One of the leading causes of vaccine hesitancy is an inconvenience in accessing the vaccines.

Vaccine Hesitancy in the case of COVID-19: Explained

Infectious diseases consultants at Apollo Hospital, Chennai, conducted an online study among 1424 health professionals and found that only 45% are willing to take the vaccine of COVID-19 as soon as it becomes available. Rest 55% will either defer the vaccination or are yet to decide what to do. 

Another survey is also done recently by the agency Local Circles and found that 59% of the public prefer to defer vaccination.

The issue associated are: It can have a negative issue on the effort to control the pandemic. And also, it may lead to the massive spread of the disease. 

The probable solution for this: It is necessary to spread awareness. Increase the confidence of the public by discussing the robustness of several processes involved in drug/vaccine development including clinical trial designs, monitoring, analysis, and the regulatory reviews that happened before it is approved. 
_{Source: The Hindu}

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