UniVax Day 2018 ‐ Outreach to high school students to improve vaccination rates

Abstract

In recent years vaccines have become a prominent issue in Italy and the debate about their use was a key topic during the recent political elections. In several cases, people who were considered to be opinion leaders, despite having no expertise in the field, firmly maintained that vaccines represent a dramatic example of “medical business” i.e. Big Pharma companies pushing the use of vaccines for economical return. Due to a complex series of reasons, some of which have been discussed in the European Journal of Immunology 1-3, throughout Europe an increasing number of people are being influenced by arguments such as medical business, even though evidence suggests that vaccines are likely the most effective discovery in modern medicine 4. As scientists we are used to approaching problems by assessing objective data. However, these days with fake news spread by social media and so-called opinion makers leading the public debate without facts, the problems are no longer approached in an evidence-based and data-driven manner, rather they often reflect anecdotal observations and individual opinions. As citizens and scientists, we have been observing with increasing concern that people progressively refuse to accept an approach to problems based on evidence and competence, and instead adopt a subjective approach that is built on opinions based on information whose actual source is typically not known or verified. During our 2017 Annual meeting 5, the immunologists of the Italian Society of Immunology (SIICA) discussed how vaccines are perceived in Italian society and what a scientific society should do to contribute to the public debate. We concluded that to effectively engage in the public discussion, we should first start discussing the method used to assess whether vaccination is a good or bad thing. Given thatwe believe that scientific evidence should be the standard approach, we identified the ideal recipients of any activity undertaken to be high school students. SIICA thus launched UniVax Day, an event whose aim is to spread knowledge and discuss the issues related to vaccines by explaining the evidence and studies over the years that have shown the safety and efficacy of vaccines. Around 5,300 students from Italian high schools participated in the UniVax Day 2018 which took place at 13 Universities in different Italian regions (Fig. 1). There was great enthusiasm among the docents and students with the students being thrilled that they were finally able to interact with scientists (microbiologists and immunologists) who were directly involved in scientific research underpinning vaccine generation. The day started with an overview of the immune system and how it fights primary and secondary infections, and maintains tissue homeostasis. The scientists also provided information on the pathogens and infectious diseases responsible for the neonatal death toll that every year affects humankind and explained how the evolution of our specie has coped with this issue; the infectious diseases have worked as a Darwinian selective force driving the appearance of the immune system in pluricellular organisms. Emphasis was given to the most evolved forms of the immune response, i.e. adaptive immunity and its memory, calling out that the capability of the immune system to remember is the biological and rational base of the vaccine success story. A detailed description of the history and the importance of vaccines was also given, with particular emphasis on the benefits Society has obtained from vaccination practices and noting the inconsistencies of the most widespread popular beliefs against vaccines when viewed against the scientific evidence. After the two presentations, an informal and rich discussion developed between the speakers and the young students. A number of questions related to the immune system functions and to the vaccine preparations were discussed. The participants, as well as the faculty of the Universities involved, were satisfied by the interactions that took place and there was a request to repeat UniVax Day next year and to involv additional Universities. Given this enthusiasm, just after Univax Day 2018, the SIICA board decided to immediately start with the organization with the 2019 edition and have asked several other Italian Universities to participate. We are please that this outreach activity has been such a success and it builds on the activities organised by SIICA to foster immunology engagement at many levels 6.