Public confidence in vaccines has plunged across sub-Saharan Africa since the COVID-19 pandemic.Credit: Image Source
Public confidence in vaccines has plunged across sub-Saharan Africa since the COVID-19 pandemic, a study of 17,000 people across eight countries finds. The research in Human Vaccines & Immunotherapeutic found that six million fewer children in Africa received routine shots for diseases including tetanus, polio, diphtheria and measles over the past two years.
The work involved interviews with respondents in the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC), Ivory Coast, Kenya, Niger, Nigeria, Senegal, South Africa and Uganda.
The largest decrease between 2020 and 2022 in people’s view that “vaccines are important for children” was in the DRC with a 20% decline, followed by Uganda (14%) and Nigeria (10.5%).
In Nigeria and DRC, public confidence in vaccine safety and effectiveness also declined, and fewer people agreed that “vaccines are important for all ages,” in Ivory Coast, Kenya, Nigeria, South Africa and Uganda.
Alex De Figueiredo, lead author, from the London School of Hygiene & Tropical Medicine, says the loss in vaccine confidence globally “could prove to be highly disruptive at this time when there are concerted efforts to address losses in routine immunization rates post pandemic.”
Misinformation erodes confidence
Elizabeth Oduwole, from the Vaccine Implementation Research Group at Cochrane, South Africa, believes that misinformation has played a major role in eroding confidence in vaccines in general in sub-Saharan Africa, a situation made worse by the COVID-19 pandemic.
“Confidence in childhood vaccination has reduced, which has led to the subsequent outbreaks and resurgence of vaccine-preventable diseases such as polio,” she says.
Oduwole adds that the issue of “access to vaccines is totally different from, and, has little direct bearing on the reduction in vaccine confidence in sub-Saharan Africa. “Even in populations where access is not a challenge, vaccine confidence levels may be low.”
Rufaro Samanga, epidemiologist, and consultant at McKinsey, says: “Currently, there are about 9 million children who have never received a single vaccine dose for vaccine-preventable diseases. This makes it easier to understand why the continent is still struggling with periodic outbreaks of these diseases.
Other potential reasons for declining confidence may include distrust in pharmaceutical companies, a lack of buy-in for vaccine-related interventions at the community level, decreased health promotion activities with regards to vaccines, and inadequate health policies.
