Most People Worldwide Trust That Vaccines Are Safe —But the Number Who Don’t Is Concerning

The majority of people worldwide think vaccines are safe, according to a new global survey—but the share of doubters is still high enough to threaten immunity. The survey, conducted by polling group Gallup and health research charity Wellcome, asked more than 140,000 people in 140 countries about their attitudes on a variety of health and science topics, including vaccine safety, trust in doctors and faith in scientists. It comes at a time when vaccines are in the spotlight, thanks to global measles outbreaks fueled partially by resistance to the preventative medicines—even though they’ve been widely and consistently shown to be safe and effective. Globally, 79% of survey respondents agreed with the statement “vaccines are safe,” while only 7% disagreed; the breakdown of those who felt vaccines are effective was similar. (The remaining people were either unsure or had no opinion.) About 6% of parents worldwide said their children are unvaccinated, mostly in areas such as Africa and Asia where access to vaccines is lower. While the rate of distrust in vaccines may seem low, developing what experts call “herd immunity”—whereby enough of a population is protected from a disease to minimize its transmission—relies on widespread vaccination, often at levels above 90%. For example, key to eradicating measles in a region is getting that region to at least 95% vaccination coverage, according to the World Health Organization. T...
Source: TIME: Health - Category: Consumer Health News Authors: Tags: Uncategorized public health Source Type: news