Hesitancy to Get Vaccinated

The world, in the current era, is facing many issues and challenges related to human health which include vaccine-preventable diseases like measles and diphtheria, higher rates of obesity and physical inactivity along with health impacts of environmental pollution and climate change and so on. These are major problems and need to be addressed.

The World Health Organization’s new 5-year strategic has an aim of a triple billion target. One is to make sure that by accessing Universal Health Coverage 1 billion more people get benefit, 1 billion more people are kept protected from health emergencies and 1 billion more people have a better life with health and well-being. But to achieve this, one would need to address and focus on the threats to health from various prospective. Major concern is on air pollution and climate change because nine out of every ten people breathe polluted air. The primary cause of air pollution is burning fossil fuels which also leads to climate change, thus impacting people’s health. Deadly diseases can mainly be cured or prevented by vaccination. However, refusing to getting vaccinated against these is creating major issue especially when vaccines are easily been available. Vaccination can prevent 2-3 million deaths every year along with 1.5 million that can be prevented. But there is a lack of awareness and full information in our country India due to which it has been observed that children are not getting vaccinated. Measles has been growing globally and the reason behind this is vaccine hesitancy. The major reasons why people avoid vaccination are hard to believe. According to WHO, mainly people find it difficult to access vaccines, and also lack of confidence leads to major hesitancy. The health workers especially those in communities, are important when it comes to vaccination decisions and are supposed to be supported to provide trusted, credible information on vaccines. WHO has decided to ramp up work to remove cervical cancer worldwide by having more coverage of the HPV vaccine in 2019. Having other interventions, 2019 has been the year of no wild poliovirus in Afghanistan and Pakistan as less than 30 cases were reported in both countries. However these countries are being supported by WHO and partners to vaccinate every last child to remove this crippling disease for good. Also approximately 40% of the world is at risk of dengue fever with around 390 million infections a year but with WHO’s Dengue control strategy that aims to reduce deaths by 50% by 2020. 

By: Anuja Arora

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