MOSCOW, August 26. /TASS/. Over 70% people are ready to volunteer for COVID-19 vaccination, according to survey, conducted by a group of American and Spanish demographists; at the same time, only 55% of Russians are ready to do so.
"We conducted a study of potential acceptance of a COVID-19 vaccine in 13 426 randomly selected individuals across 19 high COVID-19 burden countries. These numbers varied substantially between countries. The far-from-universal willingness to accept a COVID-19 vaccine is a cause for concern. Unless and until the origins of such wide variation in willingness to accept a vaccine is better understood and addressed, differences in COVID-19 vaccine coverage between countries could potentially delay the restoration of global connectivity and global economic recovery," the authors write.
Recently, scientists from Russia, the US, the UK, China and a number of other nations announced testing of various COVID-19 vaccines. Some of them are being tested on animals, while others have already entered testing on human volunteers. The first results of tests will be available only next year, unless the vaccine testing method changes.
The group of demographists and medics, led by Jeffrey Lazarus of Barcelona Institute of Global Health, conducted a series of polls among residents of 19 countries, most affected by COVID-19 (including Russia), in order to estimate how willing they are to accept a vaccine.
Low acceptance
The survey covered almost 13,500 men and women aged 18 or above, who answered questions about their acceptance of COVID-19 vaccines or vaccines for other diseases, as well as their income, education and other social and economic parameters.
The results, Lazarus and his colleagues note, indicate that the humanity is not yet ready for a level of vaccination, required to completely eliminate the COVID-19 epidemic. Overall, about 71.5% of respondents agreed to volunteer for the vaccine, but only 61.4% said they would accept their employer’s recommendation to do so.
Besides, the scientists discovered significant discrepancy in vaccine acceptance among residents of different countries. For example, over 80% of respondents from China, Brazil and South Korea favored vaccination, while less than 60% of declared their acceptance in Russia, Poland and France. The lowest acceptance - 55% - was registered in Russia.
However, it were not Russians, but Poles who expressed the strongest negativity: about 25% of respondents in Poland spoke negatively about the developed vaccines. On the other hand, only one third of Russians said they will follow an employer’s recommendation to take a vaccine - a trend also found in Brazil, France and Mexico.
The scientists hope that the discovered discrepancies between the youth and the seniors, as well as between the well-off and the poor would help authorities and epidemiologists in all these countries to pick the most optimal strategies to persuade people to show trust in medics and undergo the procedure.