A Consultant Virologist, Prof. Oyewale Tomori, has decried the growing level of vaccine hesitancy among the populace, calling for massive education campaigns to address the misinformation and disinformation about vaccine.
Tomori, also the Chairman of Biovaccines Nig. Ltd., made the call in an interview with the News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) on Sunday in Lagos..
He decried that some parents still resisted their children being vaccinated, in spite efforts to ensure wide vaccine coverage in the country.
He explained that the misinformation and unfounded fallacies about vaccines especially modern mRNA vaccines had taken roots and were now bearing fruits of vaccine hesitance and vaccine boycott.
NAN reports that an mRNAl vaccine is a preventive treatment that trains the body to fight infectious diseases.
The virologist added that most of the misinformation often went unchallenged with fact, saying that there was now a spill over against standard routine vaccines that were accepted in times past.
He said that lack of confidence in vaccines was a threat to the success of vaccination programmes.
According to him, to assure full acceptance of vaccines, there is need for continuous education to sensitise the populace on the relevance of vaccine.
“To assure full acceptance of vaccines we must continue to share the truth and the facts about life saving vaccines as fast, if not faster, than the misinformation and disinformation about vaccines.
“We must provide information about countries which had eliminated some vaccine preventable disease through consistent and high-level vaccinations and which are now experiencing severe outbreaks of diseases that had been brought under control because they are now boycotting the same vaccines that saved their children.
“We must realise that as long as any country has the disease the remaining countries cannot abandon vaccinations against the disease.
“For example, only two countries in the world are still endemic for wild poliovirus and the rest of other countries must continue to vaccinate against polio and maintain a high level of reliable surveillance to detect disease,” Tomori told NAN.
According to him, vaccine hesitancy is believed to be responsible for decreasing vaccine coverage and an increasing risk of vaccine-preventable disease outbreaks and epidemics.
Speaking, a parent and mother of two, Mrs Gloria Adams said that vaccination and other forms of medical treatment particularly blood transfusion were against her religious belief.
Adams said that her two children (now teenagers) were living healthy in spite of the fact that they were never vaccinated at any point since their birth.
She expressed confidence in divine protection and healing, saying that God was the ultimate healer.
According to her, with or without vaccination, an individual can contract disease or fall sick, saying that what matters is for one to maintain healthy living and good hygiene practices.
Another parent, Mr Maduka Osita said that the side effects he experienced after taking the COVID-19 vaccine had discourage him from having anything to do with vaccine again.
Osita reiterated the need for more sensitisation about vaccine to provide people with the right information, saying that the misconceptions and side effects associated with vaccine often times discourage some people from taking it.
However, Mr and Mrs Paul Onyag, told NAN that all their children were vaccinated as at when due and had no aversion whatsoever to vaccination and immunisation, as long as medical and health experts advise so.
