Covid-19: Anti-vaccine sentiment lesser in poorer countries than wealthy

80 per cent of people in 10 countries in Asia, Africa and South America were willing to be inoculated, while in the United States and Russia there was more reluctance

A health worker receives the AstraZeneca/Oxford vaccine at the Kenyatta National Hospital in Nairobi. Reuters

A woman receives an Oxford/AstraZeneca vaccine at the Ridge Hospital in Accra, Ghana. AFP

Kenya's Cabinet Secretary for Health Mutahi Kagwe receives the first batch of AstraZeneca/Oxford vaccines at the Jomo Kenyatta international airport in Nairobi. Reuters

Workers offload boxes with Oxford/AstraZeneca vaccines as Nigeria receives its first batch of Covid-19 vaccines under Covax scheme, at the international airport of Abuja. Reuters

People wait in line to receive an injection of the Oxford/AstraZeneca Covid-19 vaccine at Mulago referral hospital in Kampala, Uganda. AFP

Nigerian Health Minister Osagie Ehanire briefs diplomats on the country's measures to tackle the coronavirus in Abuja. Reuters

An Ugandan doctor receives the first injection of the Oxford/AstraZeneca Covid-19 vaccine at Mulago referral hospital in Kampala. AFP

Cargo containing a batch of the Oxford/AstraZeneca vaccine against Covid-19 is seen at an airport in Khartoum, Sudan. Reuters

Traditional leaders wait their turn to receive Oxford/AstraZeneca vaccines at the Ridge Hospital in Accra. AFP

Healthcare worker prepares a dose of the Oxford/AstraZeneca COVID-19 vaccine at the National hospital in Abuja, Nigeria, March 5, 2021. REUTERS/Afolabi Sotunde

An employee unloads boxes of Oxford/AstraZeneca vaccines after their delivery as a part of the UN-led COVAX initiative at Entebbe international airport in Uganda. AFP

Dr Ngong Cyprian receives his first dose of the Oxford/AstraZeneca Covid-19 vaccine from Dr Faisal Shuaib, Executive Director and Chief Executive Officer of the National Primary Health Care Development Agency, at the National hospital in Abuja. Reuters

Nigeria's first batch of Oxford/AstraZeneca vaccines arrives at the international airport of Abuja. Reuters

Kenyan workers receive the first batch of AstraZeneca/Oxford vaccines under the COVAX scheme at the Jomo Kenyatta international airport in Nairobi, Kenya. Reuters

A man receives a dose of the Oxford/AstraZeneca vaccine at the Jabra Hospital for Emergency and Injuries in Sudan's capital Khartoum. AFP

A medical worker receives a dose of the Oxford/AstraZeneca vaccine at the Jabra Hospital for Emergency and Injuries in Sudan's capital Khartoum. AFP

Elderly people wait to receive the first injection of Oxford/AstraZeneca Covid-19 vaccine at Muyumbu Health Center in Rwamagana, East Kigali, Rwanda. AFP

Workers offload Oxford/AstraZeneca vaccines under the COVAX scheme at the Aden Abdulle Osman Airport in Mogadishu, Somalia. Reuters

Health workers stand inside a Covid-19 vaccine center during the firstOxford/AstraZeneca Covid-19 vaccine administration at the palais des sports in Abidjan, Ivory Coast. AFP

An Ethiopian Airlines staff unloads the Oxford/AstraZeneca vaccines under the COVAX scheme at the Bole International Airport in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia. Reuters

Workers start to un-wrap boxes containing Oxford/AstraZeneca vaccines donated to Senegal by the COVAX global Covid-19 vaccination program are seen as they are unloaded in Dakar. AFP

Doses of the Oxford/AstraZeneca Covid-19 vaccine are unloaded from a plane upon arrival at the airport in Bamako, Mali. AFP

A health professional administers a Oxford/AstraZeneca vaccine to a nurse at the Central Vaccine depot in Luanda, Angola. AFP

People living in low and middle-income countries are more eager to receive a Covid-19 vaccine compared to those in the United States, research shows.

The study, published in the journal Nature Medicine, surveyed people in 10 low to middle-income countries across Asia, Africa and South America, as well as Russia and the US, to compare vaccine sentiment.

It found 80 per cent of people surveyed in the low to middle-income countries were willing to be inoculated against the disease.

That compared to around two-thirds, or 65 per cent, in the US.

Low and middle-income countries should be proud of their collective spirit to achieve rates in favour of Covid vaccine that are higher than citizens of higher-income countries

Prof John Oxford

Only 30 per cent of those in upper-middle-income Russia said they would be prepared to get the shot, however.

Prof John Oxford, emeritus professor of virology at Queen Mary University of London and co-author of the textbook Human Virology, said low and middle-income countries should be “proud of their collective spirit to achieve rates [in favour of Covid vaccination that are] higher than citizens of higher-income countries”.

“In the latter group a complacency has crept in about infection accompanied by a vocal minority who oppose vaccine,” Prof Oxford said.

“But this minority have always been around, even 200 years ago as smallpox vaccines were introduced. But still, they were not able to prevent smallpox from being eradicated from the world.”

Experts have said vaccine hesitancy jeopardises efforts to reach herd immunity, as it means more people are vulnerable to catching the virus and passing it on to others.

It also raises the risk of the virus accruing new mutations, which could help it evade prior immunity from vaccination or infection since increased spread gives it more chance to replicate and change.

For that reason, experts have urged rich countries, which have hoarded the supply of vaccines against Covid-19, to share them with developing nations.

“Beyond the equity concerns, sharing vaccines is also the most efficient thing to do,” Ahmed Mushfiq Mobarak, an economist at Yale University in New Haven, Connecticut, and a co-author of the study, told Nature.

“You want to give vaccines to people who are eager to take them.”

Concerns about side effects and efficacy were among the top reasons given by respondents for refusing the vaccine in the low and middle-income countries, which included Nepal, Rwanda and Colombia.

Kathi Carlsten, a Los Angeles Unified School District nurse, applies a dose of the Moderna vaccine to a LAUSD employee as LAUSD's first vaccination site opened at the Roybal Learning Center, in Los Angeles. Superintendent Austin Beutner was there in the morning to meet with the vaccination team and the first district employees to receive their vaccines at this site. AP Photo

Medical transporter Adrian Parrilla transports a patient into a COVID-19 unit at Mission Hospital in Mission Viejo, Calif. AP Photo

A health worker receives a dose of the Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine against COVID-19 at the Versalles Clinic, in Cali, Colombia, amid the novel coronavirus pandemic. AFP

A commuter wears a faces shield and mask across the street from a train station amid the COVID-19 pandemic, in Santa Monica, California. AP Photo

Traffic cones line around the empty parking lot of Dodger Stadium, a mass COVID-19 vaccination in Los Angeles. California has closed some vaccination centers and delayed appointments following winter storms elsewhere in the country that hampered the shipment of doses. AP Photo

Grace John, who works at a school in San Lorenzo, gets a COVID-19 shot at a mobile vaccination clinic run by the Federal Emergency Management Agency and the state in Hayward, California. AP Photo

U.S. President Joe Biden wears a protective mask while speaking as U.S. Vice President Kamala Harris, left, listens during a meeting with labor leaders on coronavirus relief in the Oval Office of the White House in Washington, D.C., U.S. Biden said last night in a CNN town hall event that Moderna Inc. and Pfizer Inc. agreed to sell more doses of their coronavirus vaccine to the U.S. faster than planned after he invoked federal law that could force their production. Bloomberg

Boxes containing the Moderna COVID-19 vaccine are prepared to be shipped at the McKesson distribution center in Olive Branch, Mississippi, U.S. Reuters

After getting the Moderna vaccine, employees wait to be sure they don't have any reactions to the drug before leaving, as Los Angeles Unified School District's first vaccination site opened at the Roybal Learning Center, in Los Angeles. AP Photo

The Walmart Mobile app is seen on a mobile phone at a Walmart pharmacy where the Moderna coronavirus disease vaccine is available as Walmart and other major U.S. pharmacies take part in the Federal Retail Pharmacy Program, to increase vaccinations in the U.S. in West Haven, Connecticut, U.S. Reuters

A global YouGov survey conducted in May found people living in the UAE were among the most likely to take a vaccine to prevent Covid, with 87 per cent saying they were willing to receive the injection.

The number was second only to Britain, where 90 per cent of those polled were willing to be vaccinated.

Both countries have overseen successful inoculation campaigns, with each approving its first Covid-19 vaccine in December 2020.

The UAE has since fully vaccinated almost 69 per cent of its population, with 77.85 per cent having received the first dose.