Human Vaccines & Immunotherapeutics (Dec 2024)

COVID-19 InfoVaccines: A WHO-supported educational project to promote COVID-19 vaccination information among professionals and the general population

  • Narmeen Mallah,
  • Jacobo Pardo-Seco,
  • Irene Rivero-Calle,
  • Ouhao Zhu-Huang,
  • María Fernández Prada,
  • Catharina Reynen-de Kat,
  • Oleg Benes,
  • Liudmila Mosina,
  • Siddhartha Sankar-Datta,
  • Olga Aleksinskaya,
  • David Díaz,
  • Vusala Allahverdiyeva,
  • Yevgenii Grechukha,
  • Tamara Jobava,
  • Mariia Savchyna,
  • Pavla Kortusova,
  • Ioana Novac,
  • Federico Martinón-Torres

DOI
https://doi.org/10.1080/21645515.2024.2350817
Journal volume & issue
Vol. 20, no. 1

Abstract

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ABSTRACTCOVID-19 vaccine uptake varied across countries, in part due to vaccine hesitancy fueled by a lack of trustworthy information. To help health workers provide evidence-based answers to common questions about COVID-19 vaccines and vaccination, and thereby, assist individuals´ decisions on vaccine acceptance, COVID-19 InfoVaccines, a joint WHO-EU project, was launched in February 2021 to support COVID-19 vaccine rollout in 6 Eastern European countries. COVID-19 InfoVaccines was made available in seven languages and shared on social media networks. A total of 262,592 users accessed COVID-19 InfoVaccines.com between February 11, 2021, and January 31st, 2023. The users were most interested in: general questions; vaccine efficacy and duration of protection; vaccine safety; vaccine co-administration, and dose-interval and interchangeability; though the interest in a specific theme varied in function of the epidemiological situation. A total of 118,510 (45.1%) and 46,644 (17.7%) users scrolled up to 35% and 75% of the COVID-19 InfoVaccines webpage, respectively. The average engagement rate was 71.61%. The users accessed COVID-19 InfoVaccines from 231 countries and territories, but the majority were in Ukraine (N = 38,404; 14.6%), Spain (N = 23,327; 8.9%), and Argentina (N = 21,167; 8.1%). Older Facebook users were more interested in COVID-19 information than younger individuals (X2 p-value 5%, falling in the range of average YouTube video Click-Through-Rate (2% – 10%). As misinformation about vaccines and vaccination spreads easily and can negatively impact health-related decisions, initiatives like COVID-19 InfoVaccines are crucial to facilitate access to reliable information.

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