“Why Vaccine Hesitancy is a Growing Concern for Children’s Health Worldwide”

A recent report published by UNICEF tells us that vaccine hesitancy has surged since the pandemic. This raises fears that “more children will die of diseases that are easy to prevent, such as measles, tetanus and poliomyelitis”, indicated this UN agency.

The numbers are not as catastrophic in Canada as in some Asian or African states, but the change is marked enough to be considered very concerning.

In 2015, before the pandemic, 90.5% of Canadians said they thought childhood vaccinations were important. By 2022, the rate had dropped to 82.3%.

A similar phenomenon is observed in Quebec, according to figures collected by researcher Ève Dubé, of the National Institute of Public Health of Quebec (INSPQ).

In April 2021, therefore before the expansion of the vaccination offer against COVID-19 to the general population in Quebec, 14% of adults were “vaccination hesitant” across the province. Two years later, this rate is now 23%.

It is an extremely paradoxical situation. Vaccines against COVID-19 may not have eradicated the virus, but their contribution was essential to emerging from the worst global health crisis in modern history. They have saved lives and reduced hospitalizations.

And yet, since then, we demonize vaccines more than before and we are more wary of them.

There is an explanation, of course, and the reasons given by the experts on the subject are numerous.

Disinformation, for example. Just like the loss of confidence in the authorities: governments, experts, journalists, etc. The emphasis is on the side effects of vaccines as well. And, more broadly, distrust of science.

For some, too, vaccination has become a political issue, although the phenomenon seems less problematic here than in the United States.

But there is also the fact that we do not realize enough about the effectiveness of vaccines.

It’s a vicious circle. There are fewer sick people thanks to vaccines. But when there are fewer sick people, we worry less about the diseases against which vaccines protect us.

The problem is that turning your back on vaccines for this reason is a bit like deciding to throw away your umbrella during a downpour because you’re not wet, to paraphrase the former judge of United States Supreme Court Ruth Bader Ginsburg.

Take a disease like measles. It’s hard to remember how devastating she once was.

The UNICEF report points out that “before the development of a vaccine in 1963, an estimated 2.6 million people worldwide – mostly children – died each year from measles”. A real disaster… avoidable!

Speaking of measles, the Washington Post reported last December that vaccine hesitancy in the United States was the source of a resurgence of this disease – an outbreak in Ohio was cited which had “spread like wildfire” – as well as the varicella.

Health Canada specifies that in order to establish herd immunity for measles, vaccination coverage must reach 95% in the population.

However, in the 2019 National Childhood Immunization Coverage Survey, the rate of 2-year-old children who had received at least one dose of measles vaccine was reported to be 90%.

Quebec, the same year, did a little better, with 92% of 2-year-old children who had received the two recommended doses of measles.

We do not yet have more recent figures, which would allow us to assess what kind of impact the reduction in confidence in vaccines will have had on children.

But one conclusion is already clear: the progression of vaccine hesitancy must be slowed down.