One Reason To Get A COVID-19 Vaccine

Vaccines are one of the greatest human discoveries in modern science. However, ethical challenges abound around the issues of vaccination requirements and administration. In 2019 the world was struck by a pandemic that has killed 2,4 million people to date. This pandemic posed and still poses a great threat to global health and society at large. Different preventive efforts have been undertaken and a COVID-19 vaccine is increasingly dominating discourse on the way forward.

Despite the COVID-19 vaccine being introduced in late 2020, several ethical issues have played a significant role in vaccine administration.

Why are so many people in conflict with the COVID-19 vaccine? We have been vaccinated for other infectious diseases in the past, but yet of today we tend to see a huge anti-vaccination movement.

3 Factors why people are against COVID-19 vaccination :

• Vaccination safety: The vaccine can be safe to a certain percentage (e.g. Pfizer COVID-19 vaccine is 95% safe).

• Public awareness towards vaccinations: Vaccination and widespread acceptance of vaccines, is a social endeavor that requires consideration of human factors. Public influence and knowledge towards vaccination play a major role in people’s decisions depending on the community they live in.

• Religious and cultural beliefs towards vaccination: the public perception towards vaccination includes varied and deep-seated beliefs. This results in a growing tension between divergent cultural viewpoints and value systems.

A survey was conducted with more than 100 people answering the questionnaire. Below the analytical results manifested from the 10 question survey:

The results of the survey provide an insight into the ethical challenges faced by society towards COVID-19 vaccination. The major reason for conducting the survey was to inform efforts for education and awareness towards vaccines.

A total of 87 responses were collected from the survey. The majority of people that answered the questionnaire were between the ages of 21-29 years. Every single one of them knows what COVID-19 is, but when asked whether they would get vaccinated or not, only 42,5% would get vaccinated, 22,5% would not, and 32,5% was not sure.

Whether they were likely to get vaccinated because of recommendations from the World Health Organisation (WHO), healthcare professionals, community leaders, family, and friends. The majority of people (72%) would get the COVID-19 vaccine if institutions like WHO and healthcare professionals recommended the vaccine. Depending on the vaccination safety (e.g Pfizer-BioNTech is 95% safe) 65% of the people would consider getting vaccinated. 80% have received vaccines for other infectious diseases in the past and only 17% have never been vaccinated.

Conclusion

Ethical issues concerning public health and immunization programs are important and should be discussed often. Certain ethical issues will always be in conflict with others, regardless of the problems faced, the best must be done to minimize conflicts amongst the relevant ethical principles. This is to avoid any anti-vaccination movements. We suggest that considering the ethical principles written in this paper, institutions such as the United Nations, European Union, African Union and the rest of the world should play bigger roles in promoting vaccinations. There should also be an increase in non-compulsory vaccination programs, increasing the public awareness of vaccine-preventable diseases and promoting a better understanding of human health.