New Delhi, Jan 13 (IANS) Women and the elderly are more likely to be vaccine-hesitant, according to a study on Tuesday, which analysed data from more than 1.1 million people.

The study, published in The Lancet, analysed hesitancy based on Covid-19 vaccine uptake and found that hesitancy against vaccines was rooted in concerns about their efficacy. While it reduced over time, it persists in some people.

The researchers from Imperial College London, UK, found that the likelihood of remaining unvaccinated was higher for older people, women, people who were unemployed or living in deprived areas, those with a history of Covid, and people with a lower level of education.

They identified eight categories of vaccine hesitancy, including concerns about effectiveness and side effects, perception of low risk from Covid, and mistrust of vaccine developers, and fear of vaccines and reactions.

Men were more likely than women to report not feeling Covid was a personal risk (18 per cent vs 10 per cent). Women were also more likely to be worried about fertility-related consequences (21 per cent vs 8 per cent), while those aged 74 years or older were more likely to be against vaccines in general compared with 18–24-year-olds (12 per cent vs 2.5 per cent).

More than 40 per cent also reported concerns around long-term health effects, 39 per cent that they wanted to wait to see whether the vaccine worked, and 37 per cent that they had concerns about side effects.

“We show that certain types of vaccine hesitancy are more readily addressed than others, for example, concerns relating to pregnancy or breastfeeding,” said co-author Professor Helen Ward from Imperial College.

“Our study suggests that as the vaccine was rolled out, public confidence increased and the original vaccine scepticism was largely overcome,” Ward added.

The study followed more than 1.1 million people in England between January 2021 and March 2022 during the Covid pandemic,

Overall, 3.3 per cent of participants reported some degree of Covid vaccine hesitancy. Hesitancy rates declined over time from an initial high of 8 per cent of those surveyed in January 2021, to a low of 1.1 per cent at the start of 2022.

There was a small uptick in hesitancy to over 2.2 per cent in February and March 2022 during the Omicron wave.

–IANS

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