Abstract
The government of Pakistan started vaccination campaign for the frontline healthcare pro-viders, as they are more likely to be exposed to COVID-19 patients. In the next step, it ex-tended the free vaccination campaign to include people above 60 and 50 years of age re-spectively. The drive is now open to all citizens >18 years of age. There is a significant re-luctance to get vaccinated even though the government has provided it free of cost. The project uses self-reporting method to assess reasons of vaccine hesitancy among Pakistanis and possible solutions to overcome this problem. Concern for serious side effects was the most common issue 154 (48.42%) reported among all groups of people, including the healthcare workers. The major sources of COVID-19 related information were television 117 (36.8%) and healthcare professionals 105 (33%). The participants reported that they can be convinced to get vaccinated if more published data related to vaccine efficacy and safety is available 118 (37.1%), they observe no side effect among vaccine recipients 90 (28.3%) or higher government officials get the same vaccine 39 (12.3%). Vigorous analysis and publication of data generated is paramount to increase the percentage of people being vaccinated. The healthcare professionals should share evidence-based knowledge related to vaccine efficacy and safety through television and social media to increase acceptance rates and hence, decrease mortality and morbidity from COVID-19 in Pakistan.
Highlights
Pakistan is facing the third wave of COVID-19 pandemic since March 2021
The other important concerns included doubts over vaccine efficacy (n = 53-16.66%) and past COVID-19 infection being considered protective against reinfection (n = 30-9.43%)
It was observed that participants of COVID-19 vaccine interventional trial (n = 14-4.4%) had confusion in getting vaccine shot (Table 2)
Summary
Pakistan is facing the third wave of COVID-19 pandemic since March 2021. If the vaccination rates remain low, there is a high likelihood of resurgence impacting public health and in the long run businesses and revenue of the country. Pakistan currently ranks 120th out of 123 vaccinated countries and lags far behind in vaccination schedules of its community compared to some other Asian and African countries. Vaccine hesitancy remains a barrier to full population inoculation against highly infectious diseases. It may take years to create herd immunity which can be an alarming situation for a country with a population of ~220 million. Corresponding to the rapid development of COVID-19 vaccines globally concerns about the safety of a rapidly developed vaccine without full clinical trials could be a factor that contributes heavily to the vaccine hesitancy
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