Vaccine hesitancy in the Gulf Cooperation Council countries.

Background: Vaccination has a tremendous impact on health at the regional and global levels, however, the tendency for people to hesitate on vaccination has been increasing in the past few decades.

Aims: We assessed vaccine hesitancy and its determinants in the Gulf Cooperation Council countries.

Methods: We conducted a literature review to assess peer-reviewed articles published up to March 2021 on vaccine hesitancy in the Gulf Cooperation Council countries using the Preferred Reporting Items for Systematic Reviews and Meta-Analyses approach. A search was conducted via PubMed and 29 articles were identified. After the removal of duplicates and irrelevant articles, 14 studies remained relevant and were used for the review.

Results: Vaccine hesitancy in the Gulf Cooperation Council countries ranged from 11% to 71%. Differences in rates were noted for vaccine type, with COVID-19 vaccine having the highest reported hesitancy (70.6%). The likelihood of accepting vaccination was associated with previous individual acceptance of vaccine, specifically the seasonal influenza vaccine. The most common determinants of vaccine hesitancy were distrust in vaccine safety and concerns about side-effects. Healthcare workers were among the main sources of information and recommendations about vaccination, but 17-68% of them were vaccine-hesitant. The majority of the healthcare workers had never received any training on addressing vaccine hesitancy among patients.

Conclusions: Vaccine hesitancy is prevalent among the publics and healthcare workers in the Gulf Cooperation Council countries. There is a need to continually monitor perceptions and knowledge about vaccines and vaccination in these countries to better inform interventions to improve vaccine uptake in the sub-region.