Vaccine hesitancy in the era of COVID-19

Troiano, Gianmarco; Nardi, Alessandra

Objectives In 2019 a new coronavirus has been identified and many efforts have been directed towards the development of effective vaccines. However, the willingness for vaccination is deeply influenced by several factors. So the aim of our review was to analyze the theme of vaccine hesitancy during COVID-19 pandemic, with a particular focus on vaccine hesitancy toward COVID-19 vaccine. Study Design Narrative Review. Methods In November 2020 we performed a search for original peer-reviewed papers in the electronic database PubMed (MEDLINE). The key search terms were “Vaccine hesitancy AND COVID-19”. We searched for studies published during COVID 19 pandemic and reporting information about the phenomenon of vaccine hesitancy. Results 15 studies were included in the review. The percentage of COVID-19 vaccine acceptance was not so high (up to 86.1% students or 77.6% general population); for influenza vaccine the maximum percentage was 69%. Several factors influenced the acceptance or refusal (ethnicity, working status, religiosity, politics, gender, age, education, income, ..). The most given reasons to refuse vaccine were: being against vaccines in general, concerns about safety/thinking that a vaccine produced in a rush is too dangerous, considering the vaccine useless because of the harmless nature of COVID-19, general lack of trust, doubts about the efficiency of the vaccine, belief to be already immunized, doubt about the provenience of vaccine. Conclusions The high vaccine hesitancy, also during COVID-19 pandemic, represents an important problem, and further efforts should be done in order to support people and give them correct information about vaccines.