Vaccine Literacy
- With a COVID-19 vaccine seemingly just around the corner in India, vaccine literacy, and not publicity blitz about the emergence of one or more vaccines, is essential to building public trust, say, health experts.
- This should be supplemented with aggressive testing and tracing strategies to keep a check on the infection numbers and test the efficacy of vaccines.
- Vaccine literacy is an important aspect in vaccine rollout which often does not get the attention it deserves. Before a new vaccine is introduced it is absolutely essential to building the confidence of people which is only possible by openness and transparency in sharing critical data
- It is essential to engage civil society organizations in dialogue, sharing the data with them, and asking them to disseminate information to the people at large.
- This could be a slower process, But this will be more sustainable than a publicity blitz about the emergence of one or more vaccines
This could be done in three ways
- By maintaining absolute transparency in vaccine trial data results and adverse events,
- rigorous surveillance through smart testing and tracing strategies as they form the bedrock for a vaccination campaign and finally by ensuring that the Data and Safety Monitoring Board (DSMB) and
- the regulator is composed of independent persons with significant technical experience who do not have a relation with the vaccine company or anyone who can influence.
Source: PIB
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