Dear Editor:
I want to share my ideas on “A more contextualized approach: addressing COVID-19 vaccine hesitancy in the Philippines” as correspondence reply [1] to my article entitled “Should breakthrough SARS-CoV-2 infection affect our confidence in the COVID-19 vaccines?” [2].
The correspondence article in this journal posed the question of how do we lessen vaccine hesitancy and convince more people to get inoculated using a more contextual approach [2].
With social media as one of the rightly acknowledged channels, health education on breakthrough infection and why vaccination still matters must be expressed/spread on this platform to gain grounds and promote trust in the vaccines. Just like the anti-vaccines lobbyists and religious groups are doing, on the other hand [3,4,5]. My article primarily focus on People who are already vaccinated and have breakthroughs, and may communicate to the unvaccinated that the vaccine lack effectiveness [1]. Therefore, countering this misinformation and promoting confidence in vaccines are essential.
For the economic approach or giving monetary and food incentives to the needy ones, I believe vaccination is a personal choice in which everyone has the right to accept or decline irrespective of economic status. Inducing people with food or monetary gains does not go a long way to sustain vaccination campaigns. It only meets their physiological needs at a time. People must understand why prevention is wealth that is the economic value of vaccination [6]. The economic growth of people is best driven by improved health [7].
Vaccination is proven as a substantial preventive measure that improves health and make individuals to increase their own economic growth [8].
Both approaches (contextualized and health education on breakthroughs) can be an effective intervention to build confidence and solve the problem of vaccine hesitancy, but when the focus is on the vaccinated losing confidence in the coronavirus disease 2019 vaccines because breakthroughs, the latter is preferred.
Footnotes
Funding: None.
Conflict of Interest: No conflict of interest.
References
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