TY - JOUR
T1 - Creation of a Global Vaccine Risk Index
AU - Nuzhath, Tasmiah
AU - Hotez, Peter J.
AU - Damania, Ashish
AU - Shuling Liu, P.
AU - Colwell, Brian
N1 - Publisher Copyright:
© 2022 Nuzhath et al. This is an open access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited.
PY - 2022/8
Y1 - 2022/8
N2 - The World Health Organization has identified vaccine hesitancy as one of its top ten global health threats for 2019. Efforts are underway to define the factors responsible for reductions in vaccine confidence. However, as global measles cases accelerated beginning in 2018, it became evident that additional factors were promoting measles re-emergence, including war, political and socio-economic collapse, shifting poverty, and vulnerability to weather events and climate change. Accordingly, we propose a Global Vaccine Risk Index (VRI) to consider these variables as a more comprehensive means to identify vulnerable nations where we might expect measles and other vaccine-preventable diseases to emerge or reemerge. In Sub-Saharan African and Middle Eastern nations, conflict and political instability predominated as the basis for high vaccine risk scores, whereas in Southeast Asian countries, the major reasons included climate variability, current levels of measles vaccination coverage, and economic and educational disparities. In Europe, low vaccine confidence and refugee movements predominated, while in the Americas, economic disparities and vaccine confidence were important. The VRI may serve as a useful indicator and predictor for international agencies committed to childhood immunizations and might find relevance for accelerating future COVID19 vaccination programs.
AB - The World Health Organization has identified vaccine hesitancy as one of its top ten global health threats for 2019. Efforts are underway to define the factors responsible for reductions in vaccine confidence. However, as global measles cases accelerated beginning in 2018, it became evident that additional factors were promoting measles re-emergence, including war, political and socio-economic collapse, shifting poverty, and vulnerability to weather events and climate change. Accordingly, we propose a Global Vaccine Risk Index (VRI) to consider these variables as a more comprehensive means to identify vulnerable nations where we might expect measles and other vaccine-preventable diseases to emerge or reemerge. In Sub-Saharan African and Middle Eastern nations, conflict and political instability predominated as the basis for high vaccine risk scores, whereas in Southeast Asian countries, the major reasons included climate variability, current levels of measles vaccination coverage, and economic and educational disparities. In Europe, low vaccine confidence and refugee movements predominated, while in the Americas, economic disparities and vaccine confidence were important. The VRI may serve as a useful indicator and predictor for international agencies committed to childhood immunizations and might find relevance for accelerating future COVID19 vaccination programs.
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U2 - 10.1371/journal.pone.0272784
DO - 10.1371/journal.pone.0272784
M3 - Article
C2 - 36001622
AN - SCOPUS:85136926936
SN - 1932-6203
VL - 17
JO - PloS one
JF - PloS one
IS - 8 August
M1 - e0272784
ER -