The Anti-Vaccination Movement: A Serious Threat to Public Health


Published: Jun 30, 2021
Keywords:
vaccination anti-vaccination movement herd immunity Covid-19 public health social media platforms misinformation WHO pandemic pro-vaccination
Nikolaos Spiliotopoulos
Marina Spiliotopoulou
Abstract

The accomplishment of the ‘’herd immunity’’ is the most important challenge in the Early Post Covid World. However, the challenge becomes even more complicated when a large amount of the general population refuses to get vaccinated because of various fears and concerns. Although the digital age has numerous benefits, social media platforms can create a gap between pro-vaccination supporters and anti-vaccination supporters. The strong presence of the latter on social media can be worryingly harmful for each country’s vaccination procedure. Despite the indisputable efforts of every country to limit the spread of the vaccine hesitancy, we observe that the number of the anti-vaccination supporters has increased. As a result, this urgent and dangerous situation demands decisive actions, in order to secure public health. It is true that a lot of countries are making efforts to encourage vaccination and to combat anti-vaccination campaigns. Information about the risks and benefits, research for new vaccines, improvement of vaccine supplies are some of the strategies that the states are practicing. But are they enough? The strategies for the resolution of the problem should be more specific and more focused on the real problem. In this policy brief we suggest a number of measures that would be able to contribute to a stronger Immunization System. Some of the recommendations are the association between the WHO and vaccine manufacturers, the collaboration between public and private field, organized campaigns for vaccination, powerful online pro-vaccination campaigns, the contribution of certain specialists, the possibility to get vaccinated by other channels, simpler supply and transporting, penalties to health personnel who refuse to get vaccinated, stricter laws for ‘’herd immunity’’, assessment reports by the WHO in case of insufficient supplies.

Article Details
  • Section
  • Articles
Downloads
Download data is not yet available.
Author Biographies
Nikolaos Spiliotopoulos, 417 Army Equity Fund Hospital
Internal Medicine Resident Doctor in 417 Army Equity Fund Hospital (NIMTS).
Marina Spiliotopoulou, University of Piraeus

Department of International and European Studies, University of Piraeus.

References
BBC (2021). The vaccine misinformation battle raging in France. Available at: https://www.bbc.com/news/blogs-trending-56526265 (Accessed: 29/05/2021).
Burki, T. (2020). The online anti-vaccine movement in the age of COVID-19. The Lancet Digital Health, 2(10), e504–e505.
European Commission Directorate-General for Health and Food Safety (2020). EU Vaccine. Strategy - Regulatory flexibility – Labelling and packaging flexibilities [Ebook] (p. 2). Available at: https://ec.europa.eu/health/sites/default/files/human-use/docs/vaccinesstrategy_labellingpackaging_en.pdf (Accessed: 10/05/2021).
Hotez, P. (2021). COVID vaccines: time to confront anti-vax aggression. Nature, April 27. Available at: https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-021-01084-x?error=cookies_not_supported&code=c6d8f13c-11e2-4d79-ade4-85c3312fb1c0 (Accessed: 10/05/2021).
Johnson, N.F., Velásquez, N., Restrepo, N.J. et al. (2020). The online competition between pro- and anti-vaccination views. Nature 582: 230–233.
Kuchler, H. (2020). Anti-vaxxers: How to Challenge a Misinformed Movement. Financial Times, September 8. Available at: https://www.ft.com/content/4739e748-a648-480d-a4ba-d2057e3b95de (Accessed: 11/05/2021).
Pullan Dey, S. M. (2021). Vaccine hesitancy and anti-vaccination in the time of COVID-19: A Google Trends analysis. ScienceDirect, April 1. Available at: https://doi.org/10.1016/j.vaccine.2021.03.019 (Accessed: 09/05/2021).
Szabo, L. (2021). Anti-Vaccine Activists Peddle Theories That Covid Shots Are Deadly, Undermining Vaccination. Kaiser Health News, January 26. Available at: https://khn.org/news/article/anti-vaccine-activists-peddle-theories-that-covid-shots-are-deadly-undermining-vaccination/ (Accessed: 14/05/2021).
World Health Organization (2016). How to respond to vocal vaccine deniers in public [Ebook] (1st ed., pp. 13-14). Copenhagen, Denmark. Available at: https://www.who.int/immunization/sage/meetings/2016/october/8_Best-practice-guidance-respond-vocal-vaccine-deniers-public.pdf (Accessed: 15/05/2021).
World Health Organization. (2019). Ten threats to global health in 2019. Available at: https://www.who.int/news-room/spotlight/ten-threats-to-global-health-in-2019 (Accessed: 11/05/2021).
Most read articles by the same author(s)