When the Choices We Make Will Affect Others
Authors: Berba Regina P. 
Published: January 2023

“Is it my problem if my father-in-law does not want to get vaccinated?”All of us must have encountered scenarios like the above. We have all met individuals who refused or hesitate to get vaccinated for COVID-19. They could be from our family members, our colleagues, our friends, our employees, our neighbors, our school, or communities, from anywhere! We do not need to look far. What will we do? Or how should we approach these situations?For more than a year now, we have been witnessing the unfolding of the roll out of the “biggest” vaccine drives in history. Furthermore, this COVID-19 pandemic challenged every individual to make a personal stand about accepting and even promoting vaccination. This issue of the Acta Medica Philippina includes two contributions that give us different perspectives on the phenomenon called “Vaccine Hesitancy.” Vaccine hesitancy is reluctance or refusal to get vaccinated even with theavailability of vaccines.While vaccine hesitancy is observed across the world, our issue looks specifically at the factors which contribute to the unique experiences in the Southeast Asian region and even more specifically to our country. These discussions will lead to a better understanding of drivers, both barriers and enablers to vaccine acceptance and uptake. This timely sharing of information comes at that crucial period when the vaccine hesitancy rates are high in our country despite efforts of our government to persuade as many individuals as possible to come for their COVID-19 booster vaccines. The World Health Organization (WHO) released guidance for countries and governments on how they can improve the vaccine uptake of their constituents.1 In addition to addressing the need for up-to-date information campaigns, governments and other “actors” who play major roles in the implementation of the vaccination program, especially during the current pandemic, need to listen and attune themselves to the main drivers of vaccine acceptance versus hesitancy. These are: 1) providing an enabling environment, 2) social influences; and 3) motivation.The paper of Hartigan-Go and group shows vaccine hesitancy research and how this information may be used to strategize vaccine education and communication campaigns to increase vaccine uptake.2The invited essay is a discussion on how the traumatic experience we all witnessed in recent national history with another novel vaccine is an important driver negatively affecting behavior toward vaccination campaigns; and how can we move forward from there.3We hope these contributions will help us all appreciate and respect the complexity of behavior related to vaccination, persuade our countrymen towards action that will help us achieve our desired goals for more, and work towards attaining our goal of better health for all.

Regina P. Berba, MD, MScHospital Infection Control Unit, Philippine General HospitalCollege of Medicine, University of the Philippines Manila

 

REFERENCES

1. Behavioural considerations for acceptance and uptake of COVID-19 vaccines: WHO Technical Advisory Group on Behavioural Insights and Sciences for Health, meeting report, 15 October 2020. Geneva: World Health Organization; 2020. License: CC BY-NC-SA 3.0 IGO.2. Hartigan-Go KY, Mendoza RU, Ong MMA, Yap JK. COVID-19 Vaccine hesitancy in ASEAN: Insights from a Multi-wave Survey Database from July 2020 to March 2021. Acta Med Philipp. 2023;57(1):10-16.3. Berba RP. Addressing vaccine hesitancy during the COVID-19 pandemic: Learning from the past and moving forward. Acta Med Philipp. 2023;57(1):4-9.