NEW DELHI: India is among the three countries out of 55 studied for popular perception of the importance of vaccines for children that have shown improvement, according to a report published by Unicef on Thursday.
According to the data collected by The Vaccine Confidence Project (London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine) used by Unicef, China and Mexico are the other two countries.
It comes at a time when vaccine confidence has seen a decline in over a third of the countries that were studied, including the Republic of Korea, Papua New Guinea, Ghana, Senegal and Japan after the start of the pandemic, said a media report on April 25 quoting the UN organisation.
In 52 of the 55 countries surveyed, the public perception of vaccines for children declined between 2019 and 2021, the UN agency said. The data was a “worrying warning signal” of rising vaccine hesitancy amid misinformation, dwindling trust in governments and political polarisation, it said.
“In most countries, people under 35 and women were more likely to report less confidence about vaccines for children after the start of the pandemic,” it said.
The report said that vaccine confidence is volatile and time-specific, despite more than 80% of the respondents perceiving vaccines as important for children in almost half of the countries studied.
The Unicef report warns of the growing threat of vaccine hesitancy and flags concerns such as access to misleading information and declining trust in vaccine efficacy.
