CHENNAI: Vaccine hesitancy is prevalent among 27.6% of people aged above 60 years, according to a study by the Tamil Nadu government. And, 16.9% of those aged between 18 and 44 years and18.2% of those aged between 45-60 years were hesitant to receive the vaccine.
“The department of public health and preventive medicine will focus on awareness activities to address misconceptions regarding covid-19 vaccine prevalent among the population. People above 60 years of age would be given special attention,” said Dr T S Selvavinayagam, director of public health.
Vaccine hesitancy was observed in 19.7% of men and 18.4% of women; 17.5% of people living in urban areas and 20.3% in rural areas expressed “unwillingness” to get inoculated. Some of the reasons were fear of injections (48.4%), fear of complications (57.6%), long queues (22.5%), no person to accompany (21%), the study said.
About 59.9% of people faced difficulty in collecting details on where to receive the vaccines, while 24.5% doubted the efficacy of the vaccines.
However, the figures for vaccine acceptance were encouraging too. Vaccine acceptance was prevalent among 83.1% of people between 18-44 years , 81.8% between 45-59 years and 72.4% above 60 years, according to the study.
And, 82.5% of those residing in urban areas and 79.7% in rural areas were willing to get vaccinated.
While 82.8% of people said the reason to get vaccinated was to prevent disease, 23.7% also said it prevents spread to others.
The sample size was 1,596 people between 18-45 years, 771 between 45 and 59 years, and 488 above the age of 60 years. As many as 1,401 men and 1,453 women were covered in the survey conducted in the state.
