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Review
. 2022 Oct 10:10:997884.
doi: 10.3389/fpubh.2022.997884. eCollection 2022.

COVID-19 vaccine hesitancy: A narrative review of four South Asian countries

Farah Ennab  1 , Rakhtan K Qasba  2 , Utkarsha Uday  3 , Priya Priya  4 , Khulud Qamar  4 , Faisal A Nawaz  1 , Zarmina Islam  4 , Nabil Zary  5
Affiliations
Review

COVID-19 vaccine hesitancy: A narrative review of four South Asian countries

Farah Ennab et al. Front Public Health. .

Abstract

Objectives: Vaccine hesitancy remains a global issue, especially within poverty-stricken countries where there's an interplay of financial and non-financial barriers. This narrative review aims to understand attitudes and behaviors toward COVID-19 vaccination in four South Asian countries and make context-specific recommendations to vaccine program drivers and decision-makers.

Methods: A search was conducted using PubMed and Science Direct, and CINHAL from January 2020 up to May 2022 restricted to the English language for terms: "Afghanistan" OR "Pakistan" OR "India" OR "Bangladesh" in combination with "COVID-19 vaccine" and other related terms. All articles were initially included, and those with relevance were included in the synthesis of this paper.

Results: A narrative review was performed for this study. Our narrative review included a total of eighteen studies with a sample size (n = 223-5,237) averaging about 1,325 participants per study conducted. The studies included revealed public hesitancy to receive the COVID-19 vaccine ranging from 6.3 to 56.2% with an average of 31.63% across all eighteen studies. Several reasons were linked to this observation in these four South Asian countries, and the predominant ones included: Insufficient information provided to the general public about the side effects of the vaccines, concerns regarding vaccine safety, and skepticism of vaccine efficacy.

Conclusion: Vaccine hesitancy is a global problem within the context of COVID-19, and issues regarding equity, misinformation, and poverty in South Asian countries makes it difficult to meet goals for herd immunity. Policymakers and governments should aim toward financial and non-financial incentives to drive the public toward vaccination.

Keywords: COVID-19; South Asia; public opinion; public perspectives; vaccine hesitancy.

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Conflict of interest statement

The authors declare that the research was conducted in the absence of any commercial or financial relationships that could be construed as a potential conflict of interest.

Figures

Figure 1
Figure 1
PRISMA flow diagram highlighting the selection process of the final studies included in this narrative review.
See this image and copyright information in PMC

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