Worldwide, healthcare workers are one of the priority groups targeted for mass swine flu vaccination. Other priority groups include children and adults with chronic health conditions and pregnant women. Now research reports that many health workers intend to avoid swine flu vaccination when supplies become available.
The study, published in the British Medical Journal, examined the willingness of health care workers to accept H1N1 swine flu vaccination. Researchers at the Chinese University of Hong Kong distributed questionnaires to 2,255 health care workers from January to March, 2009 and in May 2009.
The researchers found that only 28.4% of health workers were willing to accept vaccination in the first survey conducted during the WHO (World Health Organization) influenza pandemic alert phase 3. When the WHO alert phase was raised to 5 during the second survey, less than half (47.9%) of the healthcare workers intended to accept H1N1 vaccination.
The most common reasons for refusal were concern over potential side effects and questions about the new vaccine's effectiveness.
"The willingness to accept pre-pandemic influenza vaccination was low, and no significant effect was observed with the change in WHO alert level," the study authors write. "Further studies are required to elucidate the root cause of the low intention to accept pre-pandemic vaccination."
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