Topics Covered: Issues related to health.
Vaccine hesitancy:
Context:
Authorities in rural and remote districts of Chhattisgarh are engaging tribal activists among others as a strategy to remove vaccine hesitancy among the villagers in the fight against Covid.
What’s the issue?
People believe fake news faster than genuine information in these times. They either believe the vaccine is going to kill them or make them impotent.
What is being done?
- Through posters and folk songs, the administration is trying to attract the rural and tribal populace.
- They are going to make it mandatory for the panch and other village representatives to get themselves and their families vaccinated.
- Similarly, the employers will be mandated to get their employees vaccinated.
Vaccine Hesitancy: A generation at risk:
Vaccine hesitancy is defined by WHO as a “delay in acceptance or refusal of vaccines despite availability of vaccination services”.
- It was one of 10 threats to global health this year.
What’s the Concern?
A vaccine is one of the essential weapons in the armamentarium in our war against the pandemic. Any hesitation in accepting the vaccine will have a negative consequence on our effort to control the pandemic.
Need of the hour:
- Proactively address the reasons behind this hesitancy.
- Give confidence to the public by discussing the robustness of various processes involved in drug/vaccine development — clinical trial designs, conduct, monitoring, analysis, reporting and the regulatory reviews that happen before it is approved.
- This will make the public aware about the rigorous processes followed for clinical trials, and the approval, as followed by regulators.
InstaLinks:
Prelims and Mains Links:
Meaning, Concerns, challenges and ways to address them.
Sources: Indian Express.
