'Pride Hurt' Underdeveloped Citizens Not Getting Vaccinated... "Obstacle to Pandemic End" [Reading Science]

[Image source=Yonhap News]

[Asia Economy Reporter Kim Bong-su] There are growing concerns that widespread vaccine hesitancy in underdeveloped countries such as those in Africa could become an obstacle to ending the COVID-19 pandemic, including the emergence of new variants.

According to the international academic journal Nature on the 25th, until the end of October, many African countries complained about a shortage of COVID-19 vaccines, but the situation has now changed. According to the Africa Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (ACDC), only 64% of the vaccines supplied to all countries on the African continent have been administered so far. Most countries are unable to use the vaccines supplied through donations from international organizations or wealthy countries like the United States in a timely manner. In fact, Nigerian health authorities, where the vaccination completion rate is only 2%, recently discarded about 1.06 million doses of donated AstraZeneca vaccines due to expiration.

South Africa, where the Omicron variant was first reported last month, has only 44% of its adult population vaccinated with at least one dose, but the number of recent vaccinations has sharply declined to about one-quarter of the peak weekly rate in September. Espoir Malembaka, a professor at the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health working in eastern Congo, said, "There are four types of vaccines available, but currently, apart from people preparing for overseas travel, I have never seen anyone rushing to get vaccinated," adding, "The problem is not obtaining vaccines but overcoming distrust in vaccines."

In this regard, a report published last June showed that before the COVID-19 pandemic, a survey of 45,000 people from 12 countries including the United States and Russia found that people in low- and middle-income countries had lower vaccine hesitancy than those in the US and Russia. However, the situation changed once the pandemic occurred. For example, in Nepal, 97% expressed a positive attitude toward vaccination in the survey, but after the pandemic, only 40% of adults had received one dose, and the vaccination rate slowed significantly. In a survey conducted from October to December last year involving 27,000 people in 32 countries, 43% of respondents in Lebanon said they would never get vaccinated. In another survey, despite Papua New Guinea having a vaccination rate of only 3%, over 80% of respondents said they had no plans or were uncertain about getting vaccinated.

[Image source=Yonhap News]

The reasons for vaccine hesitancy are similar worldwide. The biggest reason is safety concerns. COVID-19 vaccines were developed at an unusually rapid pace, and during this process, the efficacy and target groups announced by developers were often changed, causing many people to lose trust. Trust in government medical and quarantine policies and the spread of rumors about vaccines are also major factors. In Africa, decades of civil wars and Ebola outbreaks have fueled distrust toward governments and the Western world, leading to vaccine refusal. The fact that Western countries hoarded vaccines and donated them only when expiration dates were near, which hurt local pride, was also a cause.

Experts recommend that low-income countries mandate vaccination for activities such as going to work or traveling abroad. In fact, one survey found that one-third of vaccine refusers said they would be willing to get vaccinated if they were to travel overseas. It has also been suggested that vaccination programs be integrated with existing infectious disease prevention programs familiar to low-income country populations, such as HIV prevention drug distribution or tuberculosis testing.

The head of the community program at the Centre for the AIDS Programme of Research in South Africa (CAPRISA) urged in Nature, "Governments should learn from the HIV pandemic and make more direct efforts to persuade vaccine refusers."