Personal Health

People from rich countries distrust vaccinations at the most

The message of Donald Henderson in 1975, reached by telegram. On the island of Bhola in Bangladesh, a small should have a child with smallpox infected. Henderson was then in charge of the program of the world health organization (WHO), which should eradicate the disease. Immediately, the Doctors made their way to the child, with steam ships, motor boats and even canoes, as Henderson years later told in an Interview.

They found the three-year-old Rahima Banu. The girl’s body was covered with pustules, and it had a high fever. Long, the doctors fought for his life – with success. Rahima Banu is considered to be the last person to be infected in a natural way with real smallpox. In 1979 the WHO declared smallpox officially eradicated. Systematic mass vaccination had banished the virus, which had killed millions of people. Today, they exist only in the laboratory.

“Neglect effect”

Also, the measles should actually be by 2020 eradicated, but in recent years the number of infections has increased, according to the WHO, worldwide. The United States are currently experiencing the largest outbreak since the age of 27, also in the Philippines and in the Ukraine, the cases became more frequent. One reason is the growing number of opponents in industrialized Nations and in Arab countries, is the WHO criticized. It will include the avoidance or delay of vaccination at the beginning of the year in the list of global health threats.

A global study commissioned by the British charity Wellcome has now examined, in which countries are the reservations against vaccinations are particularly large. For the study, the opinion research Institute Gallup interviewed between April and December 2018, more than 140,000 people aged 15 and over in 144 countries. The participants answered whether you have ever heard of vaccinations, whether you think vaccinations are safe, effective, and important for children, and whether their own children are immunized.

Proportion of people in per cent, with “I absolutely agree not to” and “I rather agree not to” answered

You keep vaccines safe? Proportion of people who do not agree with:

The result is that, In wealthy countries, people have particularly strong reservations against vaccinations:

  • The greatest scepticism in France. There is almost one in three do not believe, according to the survey, that vaccinations are safe, in the West European average, it was one in five.
  • In English long-doubted, however, only just under one in eight (7.6%) of the respondents on the safety of vaccinations.
  • The greatest trust in Bangladesh and Rwanda, where almost the entire population is convinced that vaccinations are safe, effective and important.
  • In the Ukraine, where in the past year, Europe-wide, the majority of measles cases occurred, and believed that only half of the respondents, that vaccinations are not effective at all.
  • Globally, 79 percent of respondents agreed that vaccinations are safe.
  • Surprising: in Spite of all the reservations, 92 percent of the parents indicated that their child is vaccinated.

The global differences are striking, said Imran Khan Wellcome. As a cause he believed a “neglect effect”: In developed countries, the risk to be infected is usually low, even without immunization. And who is infectious, and I thank you for the good health system, good chances to survive the disease. In countries where there is more likely to infectious diseases, was the confidence in vaccination higher.