With the outburst of the deadly coronavirus (SARS-CoV-2), the quest to find the vaccine emerged, leading to development of vaccines by various governmental and non-governmental organizations. This highly contagious disease, which nearly immobilized the world, reported RNA viral genome (D.A. Brian, et al., 2005) that has ability to mutate in the human body (R.K. Pathan, et al., 2020). It is transmitted from an infected person to a healthy person via droplets/aerosols containing virus which comes in direct contact with nose, mouth or eyes. The first active case of coronavirus was reported back in late December 2019 in the city Wuhan, China, and it took few months to spread out in the world.
Apart from critical threats it presented to global public health and economy, vaccine hesitancy is another challenge in fight against COVID-19. Vaccine hesitancy refers to unacceptance of vaccine or delay in accepting vaccine even after availability of vaccination services. Vaccination program run by any country becomes very important determining factor in the control of such infectious disease, where one’s safety lies in the hand of the whole community, allowing attainment of herd immunity.
Herd immunity or mass immunity refers to a means of indirect protection against an infectious disease when a sufficient number of individuals has become immune to the disease through vaccination or previous infection, in a way reducing a risk of infection for a person who lacks immunity (P. Fine, et al., 2011). Individuals, who are immune, play an essential role in breaking chains of infection, which ultimately slows down the spread of the disease (R.M. Merrill, 2013). Hence, more the immune individuals in population, lesser will be the chances of a non-immune individual to come in contact with the disease (P. Fine, 2013).
Any vaccination program’s success depends upon the population’s willingness to uptake vaccine, which cannot be enforced. It results after a complex decision making of an individual, which is influenced by number of factors including, educational qualifications, vaccine awareness among the population, communication, and media coverage, trust in government facilities, risk perception, economic background, gender/individual/religious beliefs, historical influence, political stands, and design of vaccination program (N.E. McDonald, et al., 2015). Any vaccine program is designed by keeping these things in mind, so as to attract more people towards vaccination. In an article published in The wire, by the end of May 2021, 12% Indian population was vaccinated with first dose, comparatively 58% in UK and 50% in the US. Moreover, the fully vaccinated population in India was only 3% as compared to 37% in UK and 40% in USA. Which could be possible due large population of India as compared to UK or USA, availability of vaccine or simply hesitancy towards vaccination. In another survey-based report by Local Circles in June, that showed around 12% of India’s population doesn’t intend to Covid vaccine at all, 23% of them told that a prevailing medical condition prevents them from taking vaccine, 24% of respondents are doubtful whether the presently available vaccine will provide enough immunity against the new covid variants, implying the lack of confidence in vaccines.
Sheela, a house help, when asked about taking vaccine, she simply replied, “Why should I take vaccine even when I am not sick?”, it is not because of unavailability of vaccine, but just her fear/misconception of getting sick after taking vaccine. A similar question was asked to a Gopal, a driver, he said, “My boss has told me to get vaccinated in order to work for him, although I’m scared to get vaccinated, but I need to do this, so that I don’t lose my job”. These are just two examples where it has been shown, how doubtful people remain on the vaccination even after facing such pandemic.
Government and health authority’s communication with its people builds an important link to spread awareness of the vaccine. Lack of knowledge or people residing in rural areas creates a gap in efficacy of the vaccination program. So, before the vaccination, it becomes more important to spread awareness about vaccine safety, vaccine success rates and vaccine side effects (if any) along with methods by which it is going to be distributed. Apart from this, pandemic made everyone to sit at homes, and enhanced the instant need of vaccine, which forced the institutions to make this a primary goal, resulted in production of different types of vaccines by different institutions. This can also result in vaccine hesitancy among the people who cannot decide which is more effective vaccine or to wait for some more time to be assured of the success of vaccine. This is another factor which slower the process of vaccination. When the rate of vaccine hesitancy is high, the demand of vaccine lowers, although this increases the time for vaccine production, but this does not guarantee the success of vaccination program.
In conclusion, it suggests that considerable vaccine hesitancy persists, even with the widespread availability due to number of reasons, but also the fact that it is declining as the awareness increases among the population cannot be ignored. These can be eliminated when all the healthcare sectors, NGOs, educational institutes and government work hand in hand for a better strategy to cope with the pandemic situation and successfulness of vaccination program.
Well written..infact there was a misconception also going on with the not so well read mmen that the vaccine will cause azoospermia and will cause infertility in them. All these myths have caused hesitancy to a greater extent.What we need is proper spreading of awareness amongst these people.
Going great👍