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0:00
Hello. My name is
Emilie Karafillakis,
I am the European Director at
the Vaccine Confidence
Project which stays both at
the London School of Hygiene
and Tropical Medicine in
the UK and at the University
of Antwerp in Belgium.
I will be talking to you today
about vaccine hesitancy,
its challenges, and solutions.
0:20
Vaccine hesitancy
is not a new issue.
We actually know that
the first group that were
against vaccines were
developed during
the first vaccine
that existed for the
vaccine against smallpox,
and there are report and records
of vaccination sentiments that
date back to this time.
You can see here one of these
very first images that were
circulating at the time which
was propaganda
against vaccination.
You can see there
what's called the
vaccination monster that was
eating babies alive and they
were coming out with
horns on their head.
This was a symbol that
smallpox vaccination that was
created based on cowpox was
dangerous and potentially
leading side-effects
like babies
transforming into cows.
It's not new, has
it changed though?
Well, not really.
1:14
We know that back in the days in
the 19th century with
the very first vaccine
against smallpox,
people had opposition
against vaccines
that were very similar to
the ones that we're
seeing today,
for example, there was
resistance against
compulsory vaccination.
People did not understand
exactly how vaccines work,
how vaccination
can protect them.
There were some religious
and philosophical
concerns as well
circulating and beliefs
that vaccination
could be unsafe or ineffective.
Very much the same
type of opposition
and concern or beliefs
that we see today.
