LETTER: Vaccine confidence

SA should be talking about vaccine confidence instead of focusing on Covid-19 vaccine hesitancy. Vaccine confidence is the belief that the Covid-19 vaccines are safe and effective. It is the confidence that vaccines save lives, particularly those of the elderly or those vulnerable because of other health issues.

It is the confidence that vaccines protect communities, because the more people who have been vaccinated the less the virus will find vulnerable victims, spread and develop dangerous mutations. It is the confidence that if you have been vaccinated and you subsequently contract Covid-19 you are far less likely to become very ill or even die.

In SA, as elsewhere in the world, many of the current Covid-19 related hospitalisations and deaths involve the unvaccinated — often those who have feared and chosen to postpone vaccination. It is time for an expansive, accessible and unambiguous information campaign, sponsored by the government and backed by the private sector, to bolster vaccine confidence in all parts of the country and among all age groups. Don’t just encourage people to get the vaccine — allay their fears, reassure them and explain the benefit vaccination will bring to them as individuals.

Drowning out the myths, legends and fake news being spread by the antivaxxers, and countering misinformation with good information, is a way to build confidence. Tell the hesitant why the vaccine will not kill them — it is the coronavirus that does that. Tell them why the vaccine will not make them sick — even though infection may still occur, the need for hospitals and funeral parlours will be greatly reduced.

Tell them that a county in which most people have been vaccinated is a confident country on its way back to a pre-Covid normality. So let us promote the positive — let us promote vaccine confidence.

Prof Linda-Gail Bekker and Melene Rossouw
Siyabuya Movement

• Prof Bekker co-led the Sisonke Phase 3B study, in which 500,000 healthcare workers were vaccinated.

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