Skip to main page content
U.S. flag

An official website of the United States government

Dot gov

The .gov means it’s official.
Federal government websites often end in .gov or .mil. Before sharing sensitive information, make sure you’re on a federal government site.

Https

The site is secure.
The https:// ensures that you are connecting to the official website and that any information you provide is encrypted and transmitted securely.

Access keys NCBI Homepage MyNCBI Homepage Main Content Main Navigation
. 2020 Dec:136:105177.
doi: 10.1016/j.worlddev.2020.105177. Epub 2020 Aug 28.

COVID-19 vaccines: Getting Anti-vaxxers involved in the discussion

Ramona Boodoosingh  1 , Lawal Olatunde Olayemi  2 , Filipina Amosa-Lei Sam  2
Affiliations

COVID-19 vaccines: Getting Anti-vaxxers involved in the discussion

Ramona Boodoosingh et al. World Dev. 2020 Dec.

Abstract

As studies continue into the development of a vaccine for COVID-19, research to understand and address the concerns raised by anti-vaxxers about vaccinations should also be undertaken in tandem. Using the experience of Samoa, which was recently impacted by a measles epidemic, the authors discuss the importance of vaccination to developing countries and the devastation that can be wrought by vaccine-preventable diseases. There are fewer laws on vaccination of adults when compared to those applicable for children, and not all countries have mandatory vaccination laws in place. With increasing anti-vaxxer rhetoric towards the COVID-19 vaccine that is currently in development, the focus has been on reducing the spread of the misinformation through penalties or company interventions, but less so on addressing the underlying concerns of the anti-vaxxer community. The authors suggest that involving anti-vaxxers in the discussion is critical to the acceptance and uptake of the vaccine to COVID-19 when it becomes available.

Keywords: Anti-vaxxer; COVID-19; Measles; Pacific; Samoa; Vaccines.

PubMed Disclaimer

Conflict of interest statement

The authors declare that they have no known competing financial interests or personal relationships that could have appeared to influence the work reported in this paper.

References

    1. DW News. Anti-Maskers and the face mask debate.COVID-19 Special. DW News [Internet]. 2020 July 7. Available from: https://youtu.be/w_RxkekW7sE [Accessed 10th July 2020].
    1. Hoffman BL, Felter EM, Chu KH, Shensa A, Hermann C, Wolynn T, et al. It's not all about autism: The emerging landscape of anti-vaccination sentiment on Facebook. Vaccine. 2019; 37(16):2216-2223. Available from: https://doi.org/10.1016/j.vaccine.2019.03.003. - PubMed
    1. Infant deaths in Samoa a tragic outcome from error preparing MMR vaccine [Internet]. The Immunization Advisory Centre; 2020 Jan [cited 2020 May 4]. Available from: https://www.immune.org.nz/hot-topic/infant-deaths-samoa-tragic-outcome-e....
    1. Kerr F. Samoa measles outbreak: Edwin Tamasese first anti-vaxxer [Internet]. Stuff.co.NZ; 2019 Dec 6 [cited 2019 Dec 23]. Available from: https://www.stuff.co.nz/world/south-pacific/117918981/samoa-measles-outb....
    1. Klepper D, Dupuy B. Anti-vaxxer groups sow doubt about coronavirus vaccine before one even exists. The Times of Israel [Internet]. 2020 April 29. Available from: https://www.timesofisrael.com/anti-vaxxer-groups-sow-doubt-about-coronav... [Accessed 4th May 2020].

LinkOut - more resources