This article was exclusively written for The European Sting by Ms. Amanda Thalita de Oliveira Azevedo, a third year medical student and joined IFMSA Brasil in 2021 as Local Director for Human Rights and Peace. She is affiliated to the International Federation of Medical Students Associations (IFMSA), cordial partner of The Sting. The opinions expressed in this piece belong strictly to the writer and do not necessarily reflect IFMSA’s view on the topic, nor The European Sting’s one.
On March 11, 2020, due to geographical contamination by Sars-Cov-2, the director-general of the World Health Organization (WHO) raised the contamination status to the pandemic of the new coronavirus. In this way, all continents have adopted preventive measures. And science was also committed to the study and development of effective vaccines against this virus.
Nowadays, vaccines have been developed, by laboratories all over the world. And many of these are already being distributed to the population of several countries. However, even with the high effectiveness of these vaccines, numerous countries still face challenges regarding vaccination campaigns against COVID-19.
First, it is necessary to note that many of these difficulties are due to fake news, given that misleading information. Often, on social networks, people share videos with falses adverse reactions after the vaccine administration. And afraid of these adverse reactions, many fail to get vaccinated. Furthermore, this situation contributes to the fact that many citizens do not trust the laboratories that produce the vaccine and, therefore, choose not to vaccinate. Furthermore, these fake news often collaborate to emphasize popular beliefs, such as homemade recipes that cure Covid-19, leading to even lower adherence to vaccines, because they think there is a cure for the disease.
A second point to be mentioned is the belief that many individuals still have about COVID-19 not being such a serious disease, further delaying the desire and search for Health Units to be vaccinated. This fact can be verified in some countries like Brazil, where government officials claimed that the disease is not very serious, and in this way they led many citizens to believe this and choose not to be vaccinated, increasing anti-vaccine movements.
In short, even in the face of thousands of deaths worldwide due to the pandemic, scientific efforts across continents and the development of effective vaccines, there are still many challenges to be faced to have a vaccination campaign with a high population coverage, and thus to reduce the number of cases of the disease.
About the author
Amanda Thalita de Oliveira Azevedo is a third year medical student and joined IFMSA Brasil in 2021 as Local Director for Human Rights and Peace. She believes that medical care with more empathy and humanity can often bring more benefits for patients than doses of medication and that access to health is a right of all citizens.
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