Voluntary Vaccination Research Articles

Factors associated between behavior of administrating or recommending mumps vaccine and primary care physicians' knowledge about vaccination: A nationwide cross-sectional study in Japan.

BackgroundIn Japan, the mumps‐containing vaccine was withdrawn from routine vaccination in 1993, and it became a voluntary vaccination. This study aimed to evaluate the association between the physicians’ knowledge about vaccinations and the administration or recommendation of the mumps vaccine.MethodsWe conducted a nationwide cross‐sectional study targeting primary care physicians (PCPs) in Japan. We used a web‐based self‐administered questionnaire by Preventive Medicine and Health Promotion Committee Vaccine Team, the Japan Primary Care Association (JPCA), from March to June in 2019. The outcome of the study was the association between PCPs’ knowledge about vaccine and the administration or recommendation of mumps vaccine. We obtained the information on background, subsidies of mumps vaccination for children from the local government, and vaccination quiz scores. We performed logistic regression analysis to estimate the odds ratios (ORs) and 95% confidence intervals (CIs).ResultsAmong 10,470 PCPs in JPCA, 5075 were excluded. We received responses from 1084 PCPs (20.1%) and enrolled 981 participants in the analysis. PCPs with a higher score on the vaccination quizzes were significantly more likely to administrate the mumps vaccine for adults (adjusted odds ratio [AOR] 1.93, 95% CI 1.45–2.59, p < 0.001) and recommend mumps vaccine to adults than PCPs with a lower score (AOR 1.78, 95% CI 1.33–2.40, p < 0.001).ConclusionsWe revealed an association between the administration or recommendation of mumps vaccine and PCPs’ better vaccination knowledge.

Evaluation of SARS-CoV-2 Spike Protein Antibody Titers in Cord Blood after COVID-19 Vaccination during Pregnancy in Polish Healthcare Workers: Preliminary Results.

Background: The coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic has given rise to the need to develop a vaccine as quickly as possible. As pregnant women are at increased risk of contracting severe COVID-19, with higher mortality, it is essential to assess the safety of the vaccines administered during pregnancy. Methods: The aim of this study was to determine the titer of specific maternal and cord antibodies against severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 S protein after antenatal vaccination. The secondary objective was to evaluate the ratio of the umbilical cord to the maternal antibody titers. Patients included in the study were enrolled after undergoing voluntary vaccination against COVID-19 during pregnancy at different weeks of gestation. All patients analyzed in our initial study were vaccinated with the BNT162b2 mRNA COVID-19 vaccine. Results: The results of the current study document high anti-S total IgG antibody titers in cord serum at birth in all mother–infant pairs analyzed. The mean umbilical cord blood sample IgG antibody titer anti-S protein was 1026.51 U/mL (±SD 769.25). The mean cord-to-maternal anti–S IgG antibody ratio was 1.28 (±SD 0.798). A significant positive correlation was observed between the week of gestation at which the first dose was administered and the week of gestation at which the second dose was administered, and the respective cord-to-maternal ratio (r = 0.48; p = 0.0029) for the first dose and (r = 0.39; p = 0.0102) for the second dose. Conclusions: To date, despite the prevalence of COVID-19 vaccination, there is a lack of conclusive evidence supporting the safety and efficacy of vaccination of pregnant women. Therefore, the results we present are complementary. Our study suggests that maternal immunization may provide neonatal protection through the transplacental transfer of antibodies. Of particular importance is the demonstration that antibody transfer is correlated with the time from vaccination to delivery, which may allow future determination of the optimal timing of COVID-19 vaccination in pregnant women.

Is vaccination a viable method to control Johne's disease caused by Mycobacterium avium subsp. paratuberculosis? Data from 12 million ovine vaccinations and 7.6 million carcass examinations in New South Wales, Australia from 1999-2009.

Mycobacterium avium subsp. paratuberculosis (MAP) causes Johne's disease (or paratuberculosis), a chronic wasting disease of ruminants and other animals resulting from granulomatous enteritis. There are increasing concerns that MAP is zoonotic. The prevalence of Johne's disease is increasing worldwide. In an attempt to control an epidemic of ovine Johne's disease (OJD) in New South Wales (NSW), a government/industry sponsored voluntary vaccination/on-farm management program commenced in 2000. We report herein an observational study of changes in disease prevalence as vaccination progressed, based on abattoir surveillance data for OJD from 1999 to 2009. We also discuss the epidemiological, policy, regulatory, research, economic and sociological elements that contributed to the development of a mature control program, whose aim was to halt the epidemic spread of OJD in a naïve sheep population. NSW was divided into areas of "High" (HPA), "Medium" (MPA) and "Low" (LPA) OJD prevalence. A killed whole cell vaccine (Gudair®) was administered to sheep from 2000 to 2009. Trained examiners evaluated the viscera of adult sheep carcasses at slaughter for gross evidence of OJD. MAP infection was confirmed by histopathology. From 2000-2009, 12 million vaccine doses were administered in NSW (91%; 10.9 million in the HPA). Many of the vaccinated flocks were suffering > 5% annual mortality in adult sheep, with some individual flocks with 10-15% losses attributable to OJD. A total of 7.6 million carcasses were examined (38%; 2.9 million from the HPA). Overall, 16% of slaughter consignments (sheep consigned to the abattoir from a single vendor) were positive for OJD, of which 94% were from the HPA. In the HPA, the percentage of animals with lesions attributable to OJD at slaughter fell progressively from 2.4% (10,406/432,860) at commencement of vaccination in 2000 to 0.8% (1,573/189,564) by 2009. Herd immunity from vaccination in the HPA was estimated at 70% by 2009, the target commonly espoused for an effective control program based on vaccination. This coincided with a progressive decrease in reports of clinical disease and mortalities in vaccinated flocks. We show a decrease in the prevalence of lesions attributable to OJD in NSW concomitant with initiation of voluntary vaccination, on-farm management plans, abattoir monitoring and feedback of animal prevalence data to sheep producers. We conclude that a target of ≤ 1% regional prevalence of OJD affected sheep at slaughter is achievable using these interventions.

Voluntary COVID-19 vaccination of children: a social responsibility

Nearly 400 million adults have been vaccinated against COVID-19. Children have been excluded from the vaccination programmes owing to their lower vulnerability to COVID-19 and to the special protections that...

Modelling Voluntary General Population Vaccination Strategies during COVID-19 Outbreak: Influence of Disease Prevalence.

A novel statistical model based on a two-layer, contact and information, graph is suggested in order to study the influence of disease prevalence on voluntary general population vaccination during the COVID-19 outbreak. Details about the structure and number of susceptible, infectious, and recovered/vaccinated individuals from the contact layer are simultaneously transferred to the information layer. The ever-growing wealth of information that is becoming available about the COVID virus was modelled at each individual level by a simplified proxy predictor of the amount of disease spread. Each informed individual, a node in a heterogeneous graph, makes a decision about vaccination “motivated” by their benefit. The obtained results showed that disease information type, global or local, has a significant impact on an individual vaccination decision. A number of different scenarios were investigated. The scenarios showed that in the case of the stronger impact of globally broadcasted disease information, individuals tend to vaccinate in larger numbers at the same time when the infection has already spread within the population. If individuals make vaccination decisions based on locally available information, the vaccination rate is uniformly spread during infection outbreak duration. Prioritising elderly population vaccination leads to an increased number of infected cases and a higher reduction in mortality. The developed model accuracy allows the precise targeting of vaccination order depending on the individuals’ number of social contacts. Precisely targeted vaccination, combined with pre-existing immunity, and public health measures can limit the infection to isolated hotspots inside the population, as well as significantly delay and lower the infection peak.

Overcoming COVID-19 vaccination resistance when alternative policies affect the dynamics of conformism, social norms, and crowding out

What is an effective vaccination policy to end the COVID-19 pandemic? We address this question in a model of the dynamics of policy effectiveness drawing upon the results of a large panel survey implemented in Germany during the first and second waves of the pandemic. We observe increased opposition to vaccinations were they to be legally required. In contrast, for voluntary vaccinations, there was higher and undiminished support. We find that public distrust undermines vaccine acceptance, and is associated with a belief that the vaccine is ineffective and, if enforced, compromises individual freedom. We model how the willingness to be vaccinated may vary over time in response to the fraction of the population already vaccinated and whether vaccination has occurred voluntarily or not. A negative effect of enforcement on vaccine acceptance (of the magnitude observed in our panel or even considerably smaller) could result in a large increase in the numbers that would have to be vaccinated unwillingly in order to reach a herd-immunity target. Costly errors may be avoided if policy makers understand that citizens' preferences are not fixed but will be affected both by the crowding-out effect of enforcement and by conformism. Our findings have broad policy applicability beyond COVID-19 to cases in which voluntary citizen compliance is essential because state capacities are limited and because effectiveness may depend on the ways that the policies themselves alter citizens' beliefs and preferences.

Rotavirus gastroenteritis in children hospitalized in northeastern Poland in 2006–2020: Severity, seasonal trends, and impact of immunization

ObjectivesThe introduction of the rotavirus vaccine in 2006 significantly reduced childhood incidence of acute gastroenteritis (AGE) worldwide. The rotavirus vaccine was included in Poland’s national immunization program in 2021. Our study aimed to summarize the epidemiology of AGE in northeastern Poland prior to 2021 and to evaluate the effectiveness of voluntary, out-of-pocket rotavirus childhood vaccination on the incidence of rotavirus AGE. MethodsA review of patients aged 0–17 years with gastroenteritis hospitalized between 2006 and 2020 in northeastern Poland in the context of rotavirus vaccine coverage in the region. ResultsRotavirus was the most common agent of gastroenteritis in hospitalized patients. The seasonality of rotavirus gastroenteritis peaked between February and May in each year of study, except for 2020, when the COVID-19 pandemic skewed any viable comparison of seasonality. Rotavirus vaccine coverage in northeastern Poland did not exceed 25% during the study period and had no impact on hospitalization numbers. ConclusionsRotavirus was the primary causative agent of AGE in children hospitalized in northeastern Poland during the study period. Voluntary vaccinations did not affect the number of hospitalizations due to rotavirus AGE. Our data suggest that universal immunization is key to achieving a significant reduction of rotavirus-associated diarrhea.

Repurposing the Ladder

Repurposing the Ladder

Attitudes on voluntary and mandatory vaccination against COVID-19: Evidence from Germany.

Several vaccines against COVID-19 have now been developed and are already being rolled out around the world. The decision whether or not to get vaccinated has so far been left to the individual citizens. However, there are good reasons, both in theory as well as in practice, to believe that the willingness to get vaccinated might not be sufficiently high to achieve herd immunity. A policy of mandatory vaccination could ensure high levels of vaccination coverage, but its legitimacy is doubtful. We investigate the willingness to get vaccinated and the reasons for an acceptance (or rejection) of a policy of mandatory vaccination against COVID-19 in June and July 2020 in Germany based on a representative real time survey, a random sub-sample (SOEP-CoV) of the German Socio-Economic Panel (SOEP). Our results show that about 70 percent of adults in Germany would voluntarily get vaccinated against the coronavirus if a vaccine without side effects was available. About half of residents of Germany are in favor, and half against, a policy of mandatory vaccination. The approval rate for mandatory vaccination is significantly higher among those who would get vaccinated voluntarily (around 60 percent) than among those who would not get vaccinated voluntarily (27 percent). The individual willingness to get vaccinated and acceptance of a policy of mandatory vaccination correlates systematically with socio-demographic and psychological characteristics of the respondents. We conclude that as far as people’s declared intentions are concerned, herd immunity could be reached without a policy of mandatory vaccination, but that such a policy might be found acceptable too, were it to become necessary.

Anti-SARS-CoV-2 Receptor-Binding Domain Total Antibodies Response in Seropositive and Seronegative Healthcare Workers Undergoing COVID-19 mRNA BNT162b2 Vaccination.

Background: This study monitored total anti-SARS-CoV-2 (severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2) RBD (receptor-binding domain) antibodies levels in a large population of healthcare workers undergoing mRNA COVID-19 vaccination. Methods. The study population consisted of employees of Pederzoli Hospital of Peschiera del Garda (Verona, Italy), who underwent voluntary vaccination with two doses of COVID-19 mRNA BNT162b2 (Comirnaty; Pfizer Inc). Venous blood was drawn immediately before the first vaccine dose, as well as 21 days (immediately before second vaccine dose) and 50 days afterwards. Humoral response was assessed with Roche Elecsys Anti-SARS-CoV-2 S total antibodies, on Roche Cobas 6000 (Roche Diagnostics). Results: The final study population consisted of 925 subjects (mean age, 44 ± 13 years; 457 women), 206 (22.3%) anti-SARS-CoV-2 baseline seropositive. The increase of total anti-SARS-CoV-2 RBD antibodies levels 21 days after the first vaccine dose was ~3 orders of magnitude higher in seropositive than in seronegative individuals (11782 vs. 42 U/mL; p < 0.001). Total anti-SARS-CoV-2 RBD antibodies levels further increased by over 30-fold after the second vaccine dose in baseline seronegative subjects, while such increase was only ~1.3-fold in baseline seropositive subjects. In multivariate analysis, total anti-SARS-CoV-2 RBD antibodies level was inversely associated with age after both vaccine doses and male sex after the second vaccine dose in baseline seronegative subjects, while baseline antibodies value significantly predicted immune response after both vaccine doses in baseline seropositive recipients. Conclusion: Significant difference exists in post-mRNA COVID-19 vaccine immune response in baseline seronegative and seropositive subjects, which seems dependent on age and sex in seronegative subjects, as well as on baseline anti-SARS-CoV-2 antibodies level in seropositive patients.

Seroprevalence of anti-mumps virus IgG antibody titer and voluntary mumps vaccination coverage in young adults in Japan

ABSTRACT In Japan, monovalent vaccine against mumps virus (MuV) infection was shifted to a voluntary basis vaccination due to the incidences of aseptic meningitis in the past. According to an analysis of a total of 409 participants aged 18–20 years, overall vaccination coverage rate was 48%. The mean anti-MuV IgG antibody titer of participants with medical history and more than two times vaccination was significantly higher than that in those without a medical history and unvaccinated and single vaccination, respectively. Seropositivity against MuV infection was >50% regardless of the number of vaccinations. Although these results suggest that seropositivity may persist due to asymptomatic infection, it is necessary to implement either a high vaccine coverage or routine vaccination for prevention of periodic mumps epidemics.

Analysis of epidemic vaccination strategies on heterogeneous networks: Based on SEIRV model and evolutionary game

Nowadays, vaccination is the most effective way to control the epidemic spreading. In this paper, an epidemic SEIRV (susceptible-exposed-infected-removed -vaccinated) model and an evolutionary game model are established to analyze the difference between mandatory vaccination method and voluntary vaccination method on heterogeneous networks. Firstly, we divide the population into four categories, including susceptible individuals, exposed individuals, infected individuals and removed individuals. Based on the mean field approximation theory, differential equations are developed to characterize the changes of the proportions of the four groups over time under mandatory vaccination. Then through the analysis of the differential equations, the disease-free equilibrium point (DFE) and the endemic disease equilibrium point (EDE) are obtained. Also, the basic reproduction number is obtained by the next-generation matrix method and the stability analysis of the equilibrium points is performed. Next, by considering factors such as vaccination cost, treatment cost and government subsidy rate, differential equations are established to represent the change of vaccination rate over time. By analyzing the final vaccination coverage rate, we can get the minimum vaccination cost to make infectious disease disappear. Finally, the Monte Carlo method is used for numerical simulation to verify the results obtained from the theoretical analysis. Using the SARS-Cov-2 pandemic data from Wuhan, China, the experimental results show that when the effectiveness rate of vaccination is 0.75, the vaccination cost is not higher than 0.886 so that the vaccination strategy can be spread among the population. If mandatory vaccination is adopted, the minimum vaccination rate is 0.146.

Mothers' Opinions on Vaccinations and Penal Responsibility for Vaccination Avoidance in Nine Selected European Countries: Findings from a Cross-Sectional Survey.

AimRelations between penal responsibility and vaccination obligation can be essential for raising the vaccination rate. Social media play a vital role in distributing information. The attitude towards vaccination consists of many factors, including the criminal law situation in the field of vaccination in a given country. The aim of the study was to assess the impact of criminal law liability and other social factors such as age and education on mothers’ desire to vaccinate their children.MethodsSurvey target: mothers from nine European countries (Poland, Germany, Slovakia, France, Norway, Serbia, Romania, Greece, Italy). Response count: 2205. Questionnaire content: adjusted to country-specific legal regulations concerning vaccinations - considering whether vaccines are mandatory, recommended, additional, and how to cover costs. The way of dissemination of the questionnaire: general parental groups on Facebook.ResultsThe respondents: Poles (30%), Italians, Germans, Slovaks, Greeks (10% each), Norwegians, Frenchwomen, Romanians, Serbians (5% each). The average respondent age: highest: Norway (38.14±10.08) and Italy (37.35±8.12), lowest: Slovakia (30.22±6.19). Respondents with higher, secondary, vocational, primary education represent 58%, 27%, 12%, 3%, respectively, of the group. Countries with above 90% rate of answers that they vaccinate their children: Greece, Norway, Slovakia, France. The lowest rate (55%) recorded for Romania. Sixty-seven percent aware of the existence of anti-vaccination movements. High rates were recorded for Norway (88%), Romania (82%), Poland (78%), Serbia (71%), Greece (67%), Germany (66%). The lowest rate for France (31%). Countries without vaccination at all (Germany, Norway, Romania, Greece), the rest of the countries mentioned above – have some mandatory, recommended and additional vaccinations.ConclusionIn countries with mandatory vaccinations parents have their children vaccinated less willingly than in countries with voluntary vaccinations. The rising level of education and providing information about complications following infectious diseases appear to increase the vaccination rate.

VACCINATION IN THE SYSTEM OF HUMAN RIGHTS AND OBLIGATIONS: IMPACT OF THE COVID-19 PANDEMIC

The aim: To identify the problems and prospects of introducing mandatory vaccination against COVID-19 in the context of respect for human and civil rights and freedoms based on generalization and systematization of foreign experience in implementing such measures. Materials and methods: In the research, we applied a complex of philosophical and ideological approaches, general scientific and special methods of scientific cognition, in particular civilizational and axiological approaches as well as dialectical, dogmatic, comparative, and statistical methods. The empirical basis of the study is represented by the statistical data of the healthcare sector of European countries, generalization of the practice of vaccination. In the study, we use international and European regulatory legal acts and documents in the field of human rights, national legislation of foreign countries. Conclusions: Vaccination represents an important component of the fundamental right to health. International legal acts on the human rights regulation, in particular the right to health, do not provide an unambiguous answer to the question of whether vaccination is the right or responsibility of a person, which has resulted in the existence of a wide range of vaccination policies and models. The existence of a wide range of policies and practices in States Parties to the Convention makes permissible the application of more imperative approaches to immunization, in particular, in cases where voluntary vaccination is not sufficient to ensure the threshold of herd immunity. In most countries, vaccination against COVID-19 is carried out voluntarily, whereas the complication of the epidemiological situation has resulted in following the path of introducing mandatory vaccination in some countries, both with regard to certain population categories (France, Greece, Russia, Ukraine) and the entire population (Tajikistan, Turkmenistan).

Long-Term Cultural Barriers to Sustaining Collective Effort in Vaccination Against COVID-19

This study attempts to shed light on long-term cultural barriers to strengthening collective action in COVID-19 vaccination. I propose that rugged individualism, characterized by emphasis on self-reliance and strong antipathy to government intervention, is linked to a greater prevalence of resistance to inoculation against the novel coronavirus across American counties. The main hypothesis of this paper rests upon the premise that a culture of rugged individualism is conducive to the emergence and persistence of mistrust, political polarization and distrust in science, which undermine collective effort in vaccination. Using subnational data for the United States, I consistently find evidence that rugged individualism, captured by long-run exposure to the westward-moving frontier in American history, has a positive influence on the predicted share of the population that is hesitant towards voluntary vaccination against COVID-19. In addition, individualistic counties tend to suffer from under-vaccination, measured by lower rates of the population that has been fully inoculated against COVID-19. More broadly, the findings suggest that rugged individualism is an impediment to resolving collective action problems, notwithstanding the widely acknowledged positive impact of individualistic cultures on innovation and long-run economic performance.

Добровольная вакцинация против COVID-19 в Казахстане: мнение населения

The aim of the study: to assess the attitude of the population of the Republic of Kazakhstan to voluntary vaccination against COVID-19.Methods. The study is based on the results of a sociological survey conducted by the authors from March to May 2021. The survey was conducted among residents who have not been vaccinated against COVID-19. The total number of respondents is 252, of which 60.7% (n = 153) are women and 39.4% (n = 99) are men. The average age of the respondents was 31.7 ± 12.5.Results. In total 84.5% of respondents did not agree to receive the vaccine, and 8.3% found it difficult to answer. According to our data, 38% of respondents believe that the effectiveness of vaccination is not fully proven, and 31% are sure that vaccines against COVID-19 are harmful to human health. 17% of the respondents noted that information about the vaccine was not available, most of which were from the rural population.Conclusions. Advocacy for COVID-19 vaccination is not available to the public, especially in rural areas. We hypothesize that the main reason for the rejection of voluntary vaccination is that the majority of the population believes that the effectiveness of vaccines against COVID-19 is incompletely proven and they can be harmful to health. Requires a wide range of active public awareness activities by health organizations and various public organizations to increase public confidence in COVID-19 vaccine prevention.Key words: COVID-19, vaccine prevention, social research, public opinion

Vaccination Strategy Analysis with SIRV Epidemic Model Based on Scale-free Networks with Tunable Clustering

In this paper, we propose an SIRV (susceptible, infected, recovered, vaccination) evolutionary game model for infectious disease vaccination strategies based on the scale-free networks with tunable clustering. This model takes into account factors such as vaccination effectiveness, vaccination cost, treatment cost after illness, government subsidy rate and treatment discount rate. First of all, we use the idea of evolutionary game to make each individual in the network get two strategies, including vaccination and non-vaccination. Meanwhile, in each propagation process, according to the policy update rule (PUR), each individual updates its game strategy according to the benefit relationship with the adjacent nodes. Then, we analyze the compulsory and voluntary vaccination on the scale-free network with considering the influence of vaccination efficiency, the cost of vaccination, the cost of treatment after illness, the government subsidy rate, the treatment discount rate on vaccination. The results indicate that when the vaccination effectiveness is about 0.9, it is a better value for the evolution of vaccination strategy. For government decision making, choosing appropriate values of s and d can make the overall benefit of society higher.

Nudges for COVID-19 Voluntary Vaccination: How to Explain Peer Information?

Promoting vaccination is a crucial strategy to end the COVID-19 pandemic; however, individual autonomy should be respected at the same time. This study aimed to discover behavioral economics nudges that can reinforce people’s intention to receive the COVID-19 vaccine without impeding their autonomous decision-making. In March 2021, we conducted a pre-registered, online experiment with 1,595 Japanese nationwide sample, and randomly assigned them to one of a control group and three treatment groups that provided the following other-regarding messages: Message A (“X out of 10 people in your age group answered they would receive this vaccine”), Message B (“Your vaccination behavior can encourage the vaccination behavior of the people around you”), or Message C (“If you do not receive the vaccine, the people around you also may not do so”). By comparing the messages’ effects on vaccination intention, autonomous decision-making, and emotional burden, we found that Message B was effective in increasing the number of older adults who newly decided to receive the vaccine. Messages A and C further reinforced the intention of older adults who had already planned to receive it. However, Message C, which conveys similar information to Message B with loss-framing, increased viewers’ emotional burden. These three messages had no promoting effect for young adults with lower vaccination intentions at baseline. Based on the above findings, we propose that governments should use different messages depending on their purposes and targets, such as Message A instead of Message C, to encourage voluntary vaccination behavior.

Total Anti-SARS-CoV-2 Antibodies Measured 6 Months After Pfizer-BioNTech COVID-19 Vaccination in Healthcare Workers

Background: This study was aimed at monitoring the kinetics of serum total anti-SARS-CoV-2 (severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2) antibodies in a cohort of healthcare workers after voluntary vaccination with Pfizer-BioNTech coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19).Methods: The study population consisted of 787 healthcare workers (mean age 44±12 years; 66% females), who received two 30 μg doses of Pfizer-BioNTech COVID-19 vaccine, 3 weeks apart. Venous blood was drawn before the first vaccine dose, immediately before the second vaccine dose, and then at 1, 3 and 6 months after the second vaccine dose. Serological testing was based on total anti-SARS-CoV-2 antibodies measurement with Roche Elecsys Anti-SARS-CoV-2 S chemiluminescent immunoassay, on Roche Cobas 6000 (positive result: ≥0.8 KU/L).Results: The median serum levels of total anti-SARS-CoV-2 antibodies reached the peak (1762 KU/L) 1 month after the second vaccine dose, but tended to progressively decline at the 3-month (1086 KU/L) and 6-month (802 KU/L) follow-up points. Overall, the values after 3- and 6-months were 37% and 57% lower than the corresponding concentrations measured at the peak. No healthcare worker had total anti-SARS-CoV-2 antibodies below the method-dependent cut-off. The decline compared to the peak was more accentuated in baseline seropositive persons than in those who were baseline seronegative (74% vs. 52%) cohort. The 6-month post-vaccination anti-SARS-CoV-2 antibodies in subjects aged Conclusion: A gradual decline of total anti-SARS-CoV-2 antibodies occurred 6 months after vaccination, though antibodies values remained considerably higher than the method-dependent cut-off and no seronegativization could be recorded.

Immunizacja dziecka na Covid-19 jako etap realizacji Narodowego Programu Szczepień a władza rodzicielska. Obowiązek czy powinność?

Another wave of the Covid-19 pandemic is approaching. Therefore, obtaining “collective immunity” should be considered a priority in the pro-health policy of the state. In view of the fact that the “safety threshold” has not been reached in our society – children from the age of twelve years have been covered by voluntary and free vaccination (as part of the implementation of the National Vaccination Program). This raises a number of controversies in the general public as well as in some narrow circles of scientists and physicians – mainly due to the relatively short period of development of the vaccine, as they claim, and the possibility of far-reaching (and yet unexplored) negative consequences of immunisation. This article attempts to answer the question: Is the immunisation of a child against Covid-19 a duty of the parents arising out of a legal relationship as part of the exercise of parental authority or merely a duty? In order to comprehensively analyse this issue, it was deemed necessary to present: the effects of the pandemic, as well as the lockdown associated with it in the socio-psychological context; the negative consequences of e-learning from the perspective of students; the essence of universal immunisation and preparations against Covid-19; the issue of immunisation of students as part of the implementation of the next stage of the National Vaccination Program (positive and negative aspects); the content of the legal relationship of parental authority, with an explication of the duties/privileges of parents as a determinant in the light of legal regulations of their competence to have their child vaccinated, taking into account 16-year-olds and their sui species status in this area. The analysis of the essence of the legal relationship of parental authority undoubtedly leads to the conclusion that subjecting the child to vaccination against Covid-19 should be treated as an obligation arising from its content in accordance with the idea of the child’s welfare and social interest, rather than a duty. The paradigm of duty could be referred to when considering the exercise of this power from the perspective of society at large.