“Vaccine will not stop COVID-19 if governments do not deal with disinformation about this illness”, said Francesco Rocca, the head of the Red Cross, the biggest humanitarian aid organization in the world. Rocca called the disinformation about COVID-19 “parallel pandemic”.
Francesco Rocca, the president of the International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies said on Monday 30th November 2020 that governments “must immediately take care of disinformation and lack of trust towards public health system”. “Without an ambitious plan to cope with disinformation about COVID-19, global efforts to introduce the vaccine could be unsuccessful”, think Red Cross experts.
Francesco Rocca referred to the study by John Hopkins University conducted in 67 countries. The study shows that since July to October the acceptance of vaccines worldwide has significantly diminished.
For example in Japan the percentage of acceptance towards the vaccine for COVID-19 lowered from 70% to 50%. It is even worse in Europe – in France the drop was from 51% to 38%!
The Red Cross alarms that the scepticism towards the risk of the illness rose in African countries. The societies there are traditionally sceptical towards vaccines because of the opinion that “Africa is the testing ground for pharmaceutical companies”. Surprisingly, Francesco Rocca said also thath some of the most marginalized groups in the world, such as poor communities in Pakistan are not even aware that the pandemic has place – we read in the Associated Press dispatch.
The problem exists also in Poland. According to the poll by United Surveys for “Dziennik Gazeta Prawna” and RMF FM Radio, the number of vaccines opponents is growing: more than 50% of respondents responded “rather not” or “definitely not” to the question if they were going to vaccinate themselves when the vaccine is ready.
By WM, sources: business insider, dgp, AFP, icrc.org
