Thoughts on vaccine hesitancy in the context of coronavirus disease 2019 epidemic

Abstract

Vaccines have made great contributions to the prevention of infectious diseases, but vaccine hesitancy is widespread in the world. The reasons for vaccine hesitancy are complex, but the main reasons are the lack of public awareness of vaccine-preventable diseases and the lack of confidence in vaccine effectiveness and safety. In the context of the continuous spread of the coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) epidemic, boosting public confidence and ensuring the orderly development of the vaccination work of COVID-19 vaccines and conventional vaccines are necessary to curb the resurgence of the COVID-19 epidemic and prevent the outbreak of various infectious diseases in China. Under the current situation, the main measures to deal with vaccine hesitancy are to play the role of health care institutions, improve public health literacy, normalize the public opinion orientation of the media platform, strengthen the supervision of vaccine clinical research and production, and do a good job in surveillance and compensation for adverse events following immunization. Copyright © 2021 by the Chinese Medical Association.