Improving Vaccine Accessibility After The Covid Pandemic
Main Article Content
Abstract
Introduction:
The COVID pandemic disrupted routine healthcare services in many nations as the majority of the medical staff were diverted to pandemic management and nations enforced strict lockdowns to curb the movement of the people. Routine pediatric vaccination was one of the areas affected due to these measures. This study aims to attempt to identify those children with delays in routine vaccination and parental preferences regarding further catch-up vaccination.
Materials and methods:
Questionnaire-based cross–sectional study involving 75 children who came for routine immunization in the Department of Paediatrics, Saveetha Medical College from July – December 2021. Amongst these, the children whose vaccination was delayed were selected and a questionnaire was administered by interview method. The questionnaire included questions related to Socio-demographic details, Accessibility during the pandemic, User preference due to fear of the pandemic, Awareness about vaccination during the pandemic, and Solutions for improving vaccination in the pandemic situation.
Results:
The majority of the study population was males. The most common age group for whom vaccination was delayed belonged to < 6 months followed by 2 – 5 years. The most common reason attributed to delay in vaccination was fear of acquiring covid from the hospital (54%). Some parents felt apprehensive about the adverse effects following vaccination like fever (90%). With respect to awareness, parents wanted a reminder for vaccination (78%) with SMS alerts being the most preferred method of communication. The majority of the parents felt comfortable with dedicated private paediatric clinics followed by local vaccination camps as preferred centre for vaccination.
Conclusion:
In the setting of a pandemic, routine vaccinations should not be disrupted to avoid re – emergence of vaccine preventable diseases. This study stresses the need for setting up dedicated vaccination clinics and reminder to parents to ensure the routine vaccination if not missed in children.