While multiple COVID-19 vaccine candidates appear to be within imminent reach, the world seems to be getting cold feet about the safety of such vaccines. Roughly, one-fifth of respondents to an online poll by Times of Malta state that they will steer clear of any vaccine but the corresponding figure is as high as 50 per cent in countries such as France, Hungary and Poland, a stark comparison to the 97 per cent vaccine public endorsement rate in China.
Scepticism over current vaccination endeavours is so pervasive that the World Health Organisation (WHO) has claimed that the growing anti-vaccination movement is a major global health threat.
The titubation surrounding the delivery of novel COVID-19 vaccines is rooted in the following rationale: the two ‘Wakefield’ studies published in 1998 and in 2002 suggested a higher incidence of autism in vaccinated children and the rapidity with which the same COVID-19 vaccines are being developed.
The first argument deployed by the anti-vaccination brigade – the ominous health side effects caused by vaccines – can be attributed to the ‘Wakefield’ studies, both of which have been rebutted and even rebuked by the mainstream scientific community for not adhering to the rigours of the scientific method.
The first such study, published by Andrew Wakefield and colleagues in the scientific journal The Lancet in 1998, alleging that a number of children developed autism once administered the MMR (measles, mumps and rubella) vaccine was retracted and does not feature in the scientific records, given that its conclusions were deemed fraudulent as based on the misinterpretation of data. Despite this, the furore generated by such a ‘study’ still lingers on, especially on social media and websites, where it has been championed by a number of exponents persevering in a misinformation crusade.
For instance, despite being debunked by a consensus of healthcare professionals, some myths about vaccination endure, namely that the administration of multiple vaccines weaken a child’s immune system and that a number of chemicals included in the vaccine cocktail (that is, formaldehyde and aluminium) can lead to autism.
With respect to the second tassel of the anti-vaccination rationale, it is true that COVID-19 researchers have been tasked with developing a fit-for-purpose vaccine in 12-18 months, when, conventionally, vaccines have been developed over the course of 15-20 years. Some diseases, for instance, still do not have a vaccine despite decades of work having been invested on their development.
The RSV disease, another respiratory disorder caused by an RNA virus, estimated to claim annually the lives of 100,000 children, still does not have a vaccine, despite 50 years of research and 18 candidate vaccines in development.
50 per cent of respondents in France, Hungary and Poland say they will steer clear of any vaccine- Alan Deidun
Conversely, however, some vaccine development work has been expedited. In 2014/2015, the rVSV Ebola vaccine was sanctioned in just 12 months because of focused efforts of the WHO, MSF (Doctors Without Borders) and the manufacturer, resulting in a containment of the disease outbreak within West Africa.
The vaccine in question was shown to be very effective, although it did lead to mild to moderate side effects in approximately half its recipients, including fatigue, muscle pain and headache. Still, vaccine authorisation agencies believed that benefits of vaccination in this case far outweighed the cons and this provides an interesting precedent for potential COVID-19 vaccines.
The misplaced anti-vaccination conspiracy theory, which is so viral online, has served to dampen what was previously the public’s love affair with vaccines and this is so intrinsically wrong. The UK’s former chief medical officer – Dame Sally Davies – in 2018 hit the nail on its head when commenting: “It is (the MMR one) a safe vaccination – we know that – and we’ve saved millions of lives across the world. People who spread these myths, when children die, they will not be there to pick up the pieces or the blame.”
As an echo boomer (born over the late 1970s-early 1990s period) myself, vaccination was a staple necessary evil that you grew accustomed to when you were a child. No one questioned the need for vaccination, which has eradicated globally at least two diseases – smallpox and rinderpest – with smallpox claiming two million lives globally as recently as 1967.
And if it were not for reasons such as cultural adversity, military conflicts and lack of an adequate distribution network, the list of globally-eradicated diseases would also include polio, which is still prevalent in at least three countries (Afghanistan, Pakistan and Nigeria).
Detractors of vaccines frequently point to the dosh being made by vaccine-developing companies, which are the beneficiaries of multi-billion dollar contracts.
Truth be told, the WHO and UNICEF consider vaccines to be one of the most cost-effective public health interventions, preventing two to three million deaths per year, with the safeguard to public health and national economies injected by vaccines far outweighing the economic investment needed for their development.
Needless to say, as have been expounded on numerous occasions even within informative articles carried in this same newspaper, a vaccine’s journey to being finally authorised for public use involves at least three testing phases, which feature its administration to hundreds of thousands of subjects differing in race, gender, age, etc., with post-licensing monitoring still being conducted years after a vaccine’s first release so as to keep track of any potential adverse effects of the same vaccine.
It is deeply ironic that while some campaigners (for example, People’s Vaccination Alliance) are rightly decrying the hoarding of vaccines and their development technology to the detriment of poor countries in a crass act of inequality, pseudoscience, which is rife on social media, is winning over so many convert sceptics in the same countries which will have access to the same vaccines.
Putting it crudely, while so many will not have access to vaccines, many of those who will are electing to renege on such a privilege. Surely, a case of casting pearls before swine!