Academic literature on the topic 'Vaccine safety opinion'

This opinion piece puts forward a critique of the policy and regulatory frameworks governing vaccines, understood as tools to confront pandemic and epidemic diseases (PEDs). Vaccines being the universally recognised prime method of prevention, immunisation campaigns and vaccine research and development (R&D) could reasonably be expected to feature prominently in any policy and/or strategic document addressing emerging health threats. Yet, vaccination occupies a relatively subsidiary role, with a prevalent focus on risk management mechanisms. This piece outlines the main characteristics of preparedness frameworks and looks at vaccine development in the course of PED outbreaks in the recent past, concluding that the COVID-19 pandemic calls for a paradigm shift in vaccine R&D, which should become integral to public health preparedness.

The implementation of Covid-19 vaccination in Indonesia turned out to have various pro and contra opinions from the public. The discovery of disinformation and misinformation about vaccines spread through social media content affects a person's absorption of information so which leads to vaccine delays. When in fact, vaccination is one of the biggest and most effective contributions to preventing the Covid-19 pandemic. Astrazeneca is one of the vaccines provided by the Indonesian government. This vaccine used to be controversial amongst the public regarding its halalness and the safety of the vaccine because of the issue of the said vaccine containing swine trypsin. Nowadays Twitter has become a place for users to express their concerns and opinion regarding the Covid-19 vaccine. Data obtained from Twitter will be useful if it is analyzed, one of which is sentiment analysis. In this study, data collection was carried out using the snscrape library with a total of 3105 tweets obtained from the period May to June 31, 2021. The dataset that has been collected is then preprocessed to optimize the data. After passing the preprocessing stage, the data was labeled as tweet class using a lexicon-based dictionary which resulted in 1275 tweets with positive opinin labels and 1830 tweets labeled as negative opinion. The aim of this study is to examines the performance of Naïve Bayes and Support Vector Machine with adding the weighting method TF-IDF (Term Frequency – Inverse Document Frequency). The evaluation results show that the Support Vector Machine has a greater accuracy, precision, recall and f1-score of 87.27%, 90.41%, 77,34% and 83.37% compared to Naïve Bayes which has an accuracy, precision, recall and f1- of 76.81%, 72.40%, 70.70% and 71.52%.

Background: Vaccination is a worldwide public health practice that requires high uptake levels in order to effectively reduce the incidence of vaccine-preventable diseases. The manufacturing of vaccines is a complex process, and little is known about people’s feelings and opinions on that. Our study aimed at investigating perceptions and attitudes of the general population towards the vaccine production process before the availability of COVID-19 vaccines. Methods: We designed a 15-question online survey in the Italian language which was spread via Facebook and an Italian website "Vaccinarsintoscana" between January and May 2020. We performed a descriptive analysis and applied statistical tests to assess differences in the given answers according to participants’ sociodemographic characteristics. Results: The collected responses (135 participants) about the perceptions on vaccine production process were largely positive: not being concerned about the vaccine production (70.3%); believing the vials did not contain harmful substances (75.6%) and considering the precautionary withdrawal of some batches as highly effective (83.7%). In contrast, a less positive perception was found for the question about the conflict of interest between manufacturing companies and the control systems (48.9%). Moreover, people’s perceptions towards the vaccine components (i.e., microorganism, adjuvants and opinion on batches withdrawal) also showed a good level of confidence and trust. Conclusions: Our study highlighted a generally positive attitude towards the vaccine production process and showed people’s confidence in the control systems, safety and high standards of quality of the vaccine production process.

It is critical to develop tailored strategies to increase acceptability of the COVID-19 vaccine and decrease hesitancy. Hence, this study aims to assess and identify factors associated with COVID-19 vaccine hesitancy in Portugal. We used data from a community-based survey, “COVID-19 Barometer: Social Opinion”, which includes data regarding intention to take COVID-19 vaccines, health status, and risk perception in Portugal from September 2020 to January 2021. We used multinomial regression to identify factors associated with intention to delay or refuse to take COVID-19 vaccines. COVID-19 vaccine hesitancy in Portugal was high: 56% would wait and 9% refuse. Several factors were associated with both refusal and delay: being younger, loss of income during the pandemic, no intention of taking the flu vaccine, low confidence in the COVID-19 vaccine and the health service response during the pandemic, worse perception of government measures, perception of the information provided as inconsistent and contradictory, and answering the questionnaire before the release of information regarding the safety and efficacy of COVID-19 vaccines. It is crucial to build confidence in the COVID-19 vaccine as its perceived safety and efficacy were strongly associated with intention to take the vaccine. Governments and health authorities should improve communication and increase trust.

study aimed to identify the role of the health media in relation to Corona virus vaccination from the perspective of opinion leaders, and the researcher used a descriptive analytical approach, selecting a random sample of Jordanian opinion leaders (50), distributing a questionnaire to them, and analyzing the results of their responses. The study found that all members of the study sample of opinion leaders received the Corona vaccine, of which (54.0 %) received the Pfizer vaccine, 30.0 % received the AstraZeneca vaccine, and 16.0 % received the Sino-pharma vaccine, and that (88.0 %) prefer Pfizer vaccine, while (10.0 %) prefer Sino-pharm, and (6.0 %) prefer AstraZeneca vaccine. The findings also revealed that (50.0 percent) of the study sample believed that the main reason for people's reluctance to take the Corona vaccine is fear of side effects, and that the majority of the sample members of Jordanian opinion leaders agreed that the information provided by the Ministry of Health in Jordanian media was sufficient to dispel rumors to a large extent, as it clarified the effectiveness and safety of vaccinations. The study recommended the need for official institutions, particularly Jordan TV and the Ministry of Health, and through various media, to continue to provide sufficient information about the coronavirus disease, and its catastrophic consequences on the economic, health and social levels, as well as the need for official authorities to provide through the various media accurate information based on global sources in the positive Receiving the Corona vaccine, its effectiveness in fighting the disease, and its safety for individuals. Keywords: health media, coronavirus, opinion leaders.

The opinion I put forward in this paper is that attention must continue to be paid to clinical observations compatible with a detrimental effect of anti-SARS-CoV-2 in certain diseases of immunological nature. Using the example of the atypical thrombocytopenic thromboses caused by adenoviral-vector-based vaccines, I argue that usual post-marketing pharmacovigilance programs may fail in identifying very rare vaccine-related disorders. Since the robust protective immunity induced by mRNA vaccines is related to their distinct capacity to induce strong stimulation of T follicular helper cells, I suggest that the safety of mRNA vaccines should be further assessed by appropriately designed epidemiological and mechanistic studies focusing on lymphoproliferative and autoimmune diseases in which T follicular helper cells were found to play a key role.

Background Maternal immunization is a successful and cost-effective public health strategy. It protects pregnant women and their infants from vaccine-preventable diseases. Uganda is exploring new vaccines for pregnant women like replacing Tetanus Toxoid (TT) with Tetanus-Diphtheria (Td). Research on knowledge, attitudes, beliefs, and willingness among pregnant women is needed before the introduction of vaccines for pregnant women. This study was aimed at exploring maternal knowledge, attitudes, willingness, and beliefs towards maternal immunization among pregnant women in rural Uganda. Methods This was a qualitative descriptive study. Ten focus group discussions (FGDs) were conducted at antenatal care (ANC) clinics and in a rural community of Uganda. Five key informant interviews (KIIs) were done with health workers, for triangulation. Considering context and research characteristics, data were collected and thematically analyzed. Results Women were familiar with the importance of maternal vaccines, had positive attitudes, and expressed willingness to take them. Acceptance of a new vaccine could be affected by worries of pregnant women and that of their partners, who influence health seeking decisions in a home concerning adverse events, following the maternal immunization (AEFI). There were misconceptions about introduction of vaccines such as the belief that vaccines treat malaria and general body weakness, and being used as guinea pigs to test for the vaccine before its introduction to the larger population. Conclusion A range of diverse sentiments and beliefs may affect uptake and acceptability of vaccines that are introduced in communities. For instance, ignoring vaccine safety concerns may impede maternal immunization acceptability, because pregnant women and their husbands are concerned about AEFI. Moreover, husbands make all health-seeking decisions at home, and their opinion is key, when considering such interventions.

Background Efforts to trace the rise of childhood vaccine safety concerns in the US often suggest Andrew Wakefield and colleagues’ retracted 1998 Lancet study (AW98)–which alleged that the MMR vaccine can cause children to develop autism–as a primary cause of US vaccine skepticism. However, a lack of public opinion data on MMR safety collected before/after AW98’s publication obscures whether anecdotal accounts are indicative of a potentially-causal effect. Methods We address this problem using a regression discontinuity framework to study change in monthly MMR injury claims (N = 74,850; from 1990–2019) from the Vaccine Adverse Events Reporting System (VAERS) to proxy concern about vaccine safety. Additionally, we suggest a potential mechanism for the effect of AW98 on vaccine skepticism, via automated sentiment analyses of MMR-related news stories (N = 674; from 1996–2000) in major television and newspaper outlets. Results AW98 led to an immediate increase of about 70 MMR injury claims cases per month, averaging across six estimation strategies (meta-analytic effect = 70.44 [52.19, 88.75], p < 0.01). Preliminary evidence suggests that the volume of negative media attention to MMR increased in the weeks following AW98’s publication, across four estimation strategies (meta-analytic effect = 9.59% [3.66, 15.51], p < 0.01). Conclusions Vaccine skepticism increased following the publication of AW98, which was potentially made possible by increased negative media coverage of MMR. Significance Childhood vaccine skepticism presents an important challenge to widespread vaccine uptake, and undermines support for pro-vaccine health policies. In addition to advancing our understanding of the previously-obscured origins of US vaccine skepticism, our work cautions that high-profile media attention to inaccurate scientific studies can undermine public confidence in vaccines. We conclude by offering several recommendations that researchers and health communicators might consider to detect and address future threats to vaccine confidence.

The COVID-19 pandemic has changed society and people’s lives. The vaccination campaign started December 27th 2020 in Italy, together with most countries in the European Union. Social media platforms can offer relevant information about how citizens have experienced and perceived the availability of vaccines and the start of the vaccination campaign. This study aims to use machine learning methods to extract sentiments and topics relating to COVID-19 vaccination from Twitter. Between February and May 2021, we collected over 71,000 tweets containing vaccines-related keywords from Italian Twitter users. To get the dominant sentiment throughout the Italian population, spatial and temporal sentiment analysis was performed using VADER, highlighting sentiment fluctuations strongly influenced by news of vaccines’ side effects. Additionally, we investigated the opinions of Italians with respect to different vaccine brands. As a result, ‘Oxford-AstraZeneca’ vaccine was the least appreciated among people. The application of the Dynamic Latent Dirichlet Allocation (DLDA) model revealed three fundamental topics, which remained stable over time: vaccination plan info, usefulness of vaccinating and concerns about vaccines (risks, side effects and safety). To the best of our current knowledge, this one the first study on Twitter to identify opinions about COVID-19 vaccination in Italy and their progression over the first months of the vaccination campaign. Our results can help policymakers and research communities track public attitudes towards COVID-19 vaccines and help them make decisions to promote the vaccination campaign.

The COVID-19 pandemic has led to unprecedented demand on the global healthcare system. Remarkably, at the end of 2021, COVID-19 vaccines received approvals for human use in several countries worldwide. Since then, a solid base for response in the fight against the virus has been placed. COVID-19 vaccines have been shown to be safe and effective drugs. Nevertheless, all kinds of vaccines may be associated with the possible appearance of neurological complications, and COVID-19 vaccines are not free from neurological side effects. Neurological complications of COVID-19 vaccination are usually mild, short-duration, and self-limiting. However, severe and unexpected post-vaccination complications are rare but possible events. They include the Guillain-Barré syndrome, facial palsy, other neuropathies, encephalitis, meningitis, myelitis, autoimmune disorders, and cerebrovascular events. The fear of severe or fatal neurological complications fed the “vaccine hesitancy” phenomenon, posing a vital communication challenge between the scientific community and public opinion. This review aims to collect and discuss the frequency, management, and outcome of reported neurological complications of COVID-19 vaccines after eighteen months of the World Health Organization’s approval of COVID-19 vaccination, providing an overview of safety and concerns related to the most potent weapon against the SARS-CoV-2.

Monitoring the safety of new and exisiting vaccines following licensure is a critical component of maintaining public confidence in immunisation and is an integral part of national immunisation programs. In Australia the process relies predominantly on the passive surveillance of adverse events following immunisation (AEFI) via spontaneous voluntary reports of AEFI by healthcare professionals, vaccine manufacturers and the public to state or federal health authorities. The aim of this thesis was to investigate factors that promote or inhibit parental and healthcare professional reporting of AEFI. A mixed-methods sequential study design was employed, with three separate studies conducted: two quantitative and one qualitative. The first quantitative study involved telephone interviews of a representative sample of 469 South Australian parents, recruited from the general population about the previous occurrence of children’s AEFI, safety opinions, awareness of surveillance and reporting AEFI to healthcare professionals and surveillance authorities. The second quantitative study interviewed 179 parents whose children had experienced an AEFI and had reported the events to the South Australian Immunisation Section, Department of Health. This study was conducted following the national suspension of a seasonal trivalent influenza (STIV) vaccine in 2010. Parental vaccine safety attitudes, reasons for reporting and impact on future vaccination intent were assessed. The qualitative study involved in-depth interviews with 29 healthcare professionals working in general practice, council immunisation clinics and a paediatric hospital emergency department (ED). The interviews sought to examine the experiences, knowledge and training of general practitioners (GPs), nurses and ED consultants in detecting AEFI and of reporting to surveillance authorities. The study was planned using a social constructionist perspective and thematic analysis was used to analyse the interview data. In the first study, 95% of all parents were confident in vaccine safety in general. Parental confidence in vaccine safety was significantly associated with higher levels of education (OR:2.58, p = 0.01) and being born in Australia, (OR:2.30, p = 0.004). Mothers, when compared with fathers, were less accepting of two vaccine risks: febrile convulsion (OR:0.57, p = 0.04) and anaphylaxis, (OR:0.55, p = 0.04). One in four parents stated that at least one of their children had previously experienced an AEFI: one third of these parents reported the symptoms to either a healthcare professional or the Department of Health. Parents of children who had experienced an AEFI were less likely to believe vaccines were safe (OR:0.53, p≤0.01) compared with parents of children who did not experience an AEFI. In the second study, 88% of all parents were confident in the safety of vaccines in general. Parents reporting an AEFI to the 2010 STIV were more likely to state the event had influenced future vaccination intent than the National Immunisation Program (NIP) vaccine parent AEFI reporters (65% vs 14%, p<0.001), with 63% stating refusal or hesitance to re-vaccinate their children against influenza. Concern for their children’s symptoms and media reports of the 2010 STIV program suspension were the most common reasons for reporting. The qualitative study revealed that interpretations of a “serious” or “unexpected” AEFI and what would constitute a reportable AEFI varied according to the professional group. Common barriers to reporting included time constraints and unsatisfactory reporting processes. Nurses were more likely to have received formal training in vaccine safety and reporting than medical practitioners. Collectively, these studies should inform future strategies aimed at improving AEFI reporting. These need to incorporate ongoing education and enhancing existing reporting processes for health professionals and investigation of alternate surveillance approaches that consumers will use.
Thesis (Ph.D.) (Research by Publication) -- University of Adelaide, School of Paediatrics and Reproductive Health and School of Population Health, 2014.