Scientists raise alarm over signs of vaccine ‘hesitancy’

PARIS: Scientists called for urgent action to improve public trust in immunization as research suggested sizeable minorities in some nations may be reluctant to be vaccinated against COVID-19. With few effective treatments and no cure for the coronavirus, companies and governments are racing to develop vaccines in a bid to arrest the pandemic.

But there is increasing concern that “vaccine hesitancy” is also on the rise, with misinformation and mistrust coloring people’s acceptance of scientific advances. In a new study published Tuesday in Nature Medicine, researchers in Spain, the United States and Britain surveyed 13,400 in 19 countries hit hard by Covid-19 and found that while 72 percent said they would be immunized, 14 percent would refuse and another 14 percent would hesitate. When extrapolated across whole populations this could amount to tens of millions of people who may avoid vaccination, the authors said.

“These findings should be a call to action for the international health community,” said co-author Heidi Larson, who runs the Vaccine Confidence Project at London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine. “If we do not start building vaccine literacy and restoring public trust in science today, we cannot hope to contain this pandemic.” Researchers found that people who had least faith in their governments were less likely to accept a vaccine-and even those who had been ill with the virus were not more likely to respond positively.

While in China 88 percent of respondents said they would take “a proven, safe and effective vaccine”, the highest of all the countries surveyed, the proportion dipped to 75 percent in the US and was as low as 55 percent in Russia. “We found that the problem of vaccine hesitancy is strongly related with a lack of trust in government,” said study coordinator Jeffrey Lazarus, of the Barcelona Institute for Global Health. — AFP