Vaccine Hesitancy: The Danger That It Presents To The Global Community

Abstract

Vaccine hesitancy, or the delay in accepting or refusing vaccines despite the availability of vaccine services, is considered a top-ten threat to public health. Vaccine hesitancy is not a new phenomenon and has become increasingly common as cases of vaccine-preventable diseases continue to rise worldwide. International health organizations and academia have been examining why a considerable number of people do not receive recommended vaccinations. Prior to the COVID-19 pandemic, it had been realized that people are influenced by various factors such as complacency, convenience, confidence, constraints, calculation, and collective responsibility, or what is known as the psychological antecedents of vaccine hesitancy. More recently, the speed of global information exchange disseminated by news outlets, websites, and social media has led to the viral sharing of fringe opinions and disinformation about vaccines exasperating public concerns. As a result, public health organizations are seeking new ways to address the infodemic that is boosting the current COVID-19 pandemic and other vaccine-preventable diseases with the objective of reaching herd immunity.