COVID-19 InfoVaccines Platform: A WHO-supported educational project to promote COVID-19 vaccination information among professionals and the general population (Preprint)
Authors: Mallah Narmeen , Pardo-Seco Jacobo , Rivero-Calle Irene , Zhu-Huang Ouhao , Fernández Prada María , Reynen-de Kat Catharina , Benes Oleg , Mosina Liudmila , Sankar-Datta Siddhartha , Aleksinskaya Olga , Díaz David , Allahverdiyeva Vusala , Grechukha Yevgenii , Jobava Tamara , Savchyna Mariia , Kortusova Pavla , Novac Ioana , Martinón-Torres Federico 
Published: July 2023

BACKGROUND

COVID-19 vaccines have saved millions of lives, but COVID-19 vaccine uptake has varied widely across countries, in part due to reluctance among some people to accept the new vaccines as they become available, fuelled in large part by lack of trustworthy information on the vaccines themselves.

OBJECTIVE

To help health workers provide evidence-based answers to common questions about COVID-19 vaccines and vaccination, and thereby assist individuals in making healthy choices for themselves and their families the WHO Collaborating Centre for Vaccine Safety together with the WHO Regional Office for Europe developed COVID19infovaccines.com, a platform that provides reliable and scientific information under the title: “COVID-19 vaccines and vaccination explained”.

METHODS

COVID-19 InfoVaccines, a project co-funded by the European Union as part of a joint WHO-EU project to support COVID-19 vaccine rollout and vaccination in 6 Eastern European countries, was launched in February 2021 as a collaborative work of a multidisciplinary team of health-related professionals from different countries representing the WHO Collaborating Centre for Vaccine Safety, the WHO Regional Office for Europe and independent contractors. To increase its reach and visibility, the platform was made available in seven languages, shared on social media networks, and advertised through Facebook in English, Georgian, Russian, Spanish, and Ukrainian. To explore the community adoption of the platform, metadata were drawn from Google Analytics, Google Data Studio, and YouTube Studio.

RESULTS

262,592 users accessed COVID-19InfoVaccines.com between February 11, 2021, and January 31st, 2023; with the greatest adoption observed between mid-June and mid-November 2021 (total N=104,041). The content was organized into themes, and the users were most interested in: general questions; vaccine efficacy and duration of protection; vaccine safety; vaccine co-administration, and dose-interval and interchangeability. The lifetime analysis of the platform showed that the number of users varied in function of the epidemiological situation. Moreover, users’ inquiries about a specific topic related to COVID-19 vaccination varied with time and geographic location. 118,510 (45.1%) and 46,644 (17.7%) users scrolled up to 35% and 75% of the COVID-19 InfoVaccines webpage, respectively. The average engagement rate was 71.61% with an average engagement time of 1 minute and 27 seconds. The users accessed the platform from 231 countries and territories, but the majority were located in Ukraine (N=38,404; 14.6%), Spain (N=23,327; 8.9%), and Argentina (N=21,167; 8.1%). Older Facebook users were more interested in COVID-19 information than younger individuals (X2 p-value<0.0001). 228 videos were shared on YouTube. The average Click-Through-Rate (CTR) on Facebook was 7.82%, and that on YouTube was 4.4%, with 60 videos having CTR greater than 5%, falling in the range of average YouTube video CTR (2% - 10%).

CONCLUSIONS

COVID-19 InfoVaccines, has been a well-used platform to increase awareness about COVID-19 vaccines. Such initiatives are important to ensure that health workers can answer questions that understandably arise with the introduction of new vaccines, and individuals can find evidence-based information when they search online. Easily accessible and reliable information is vital to counter misinformation about vaccines and vaccination, which spreads easily and can negatively impact health-related decisions and thereby individual and public health.