THE GREEK MOVEMENT AGAINST VACCINATION IN GREECE AND THE POTENTIAL SIDE-EFFECTS OF COVID-19 VACCINES

Eirini Vogiatzaki, Anastasia Nikolopoulou

Abstract


The history of the anti-vaccination movement is long. It does not have a long tradition in Greece. However, from the beginning of COVID-19 and even before a vaccine was discovered, a significant portion of Greeks categorically stated their refusal to participate in vaccination despite the deadly consequences of the virus. This is mainly due to the misinformation they have received and the fact that they believed various conspiracy theories that start with the dangers of vaccines and go as far as the belief that COVID-19 does not exist. These beliefs, in addition to being untrue, also carry a great danger. The more people who refuse to be vaccinated because they think they are doing some kind of resistance, the harder it will be to achieve the collective immunity needed to fight COVID-19. The benefits of vaccination in preventing and protecting against communicable diseases do not only concern the vaccinated population, but, through the immunity of the community, the benefits extend to the whole population, as the transmission of diseases is limited and even people who are not vaccinated are protected such as pregnant women, immunocompromised individuals, and newborns.

Article visualizations:

Hit counter


Keywords


vaccination, COVID-19, anti-vaccination movement

Full Text:

PDF

References


Bond, L., & Nolan, T. (2011). Making sense of perceptions of risk of diseases and vaccinations: a qualitative study combining models of health beliefs, decision-making and risk perception. BMC public health, 11(1), 1-14.

Chung, Y., Schamel, J., Fisher, A., & Frew, P. M. (2017). Influences on immunization decision-making among US parents of young children. Maternal and child health journal, 21(12), 2178-2187.

Dianeosis (2020). Panhellenic Public Opinion Survey on the Coronavirus Pandemic - 2nd wave. October. In https://www.dianeosis.org/wp-content/uploads/2020/12/public_opinion_covid-19_v8-17.12.2020.pdf

Evans, M., Stoddart, H., Condon, L., Freeman, E., Grizzell, M., & Mullen, R. (2001). Parents' perspectives on the MMR immunization: a focus group study. British Journal of General Practice, 51(472), 904-910.

Frawley, J. E., McIntyre, E., Sibbritt, D., Wardle, J., Schloss, J., Lauche, R., & Adams, J. (2018). Associations between cancer screening behavior and complementary medicine use: results of a national cross-sectional survey of 9151 Australian women. Integrative cancer therapies, 17(3), 979-985.

Glanz, J. M., Wagner, N. M., Narwaney, K. J., Shoup, J. A., McClure, D. L., McCormick, E. V., & Daley, M. F. (2013). A mixed-methods study of parental vaccine decision making and parent-provider trust. Academic pediatrics, 13(5), 481-488.

Harmsen, I. A., Ruiter, R. A., Paulussen, T. G., Mollema, L., Kok, G., & de Melker, H. E. (2012). Factors that influence vaccination decision-making by parents who visit an anthroposophical child welfare center: a focus group study. Advances in preventive medicine, 2012.

MacDonald, N. E. (2015). SAGE Working Group on Vaccine Hesitancy. Vaccine hesitancy: definition, scope, and determinants. Vaccine, 33(34), 4161-4.

McNeil, D. A., Mueller, M., MacDonald, S., McDonald, S., Saini, V., Kellner, J. D., & Tough, S. (2019). Maternal perceptions of childhood vaccination: explanations of reasons for and against vaccination. BMC public health, 19(1), 1-12.

Mupandawana, E. T., & Cross, R. (2016). Attitudes towards human papillomavirus vaccination among African parents in a city in the north of England: a qualitative study. Reproductive health, 13(1), 1-12.

Taylor, B., Miller, E., Farrington, C., Petropoulos, M. C., Favot-Mayaud, I., Li, J., &Waight, P. A. (1999). Autism and measles, mumps, and rubella vaccine: no epidemiological evidence for a causal association. The Lancet, 353(9169), 2026-2029.

Taylor, L. E., Swerdfeger, A. L., &Eslick, G. D. (2014). Vaccines are not associated with autism: an evidence-based meta-analysis of case-control and cohort studies. Vaccine, 32(29), 3623-3629.

Witteman, H. O., Chipenda Dansokho, S., Exe, N., Dupuis, A., Provencher, T., & Zikmund‐Fisher, B. J. (2015). Risk communication, values clarification, and vaccination decisions. Risk Analysis, 35(10), 1801-1819.

Wolfe, R. M., & Sharp, L. K. (2002). Anti-vaccinationists past and present. BMJ, 325(7361), 430-432.




DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.46827/ejphs.v4i1.91

Refbacks

  • There are currently no refbacks.


Copyright (c) 2021 Eirini Vogiatzaki, Anastasia Nikolopoulou

Creative Commons License
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License.

Copyright © 2019 - 2026. European Journal of Public Health Studies (ISSN 2668-1056/ISSN-L 2668-1056) is a registered trademark of Open Access Publishing Group. All rights reserved.

This journal is a serial publication uniquely identified by an International Standard Serial Number (ISSN) serial number certificate issued by Romanian National Library. All the research works are uniquely identified by a CrossRef DOI digital object identifier supplied by indexing and repository platforms. All the research works published on this journal are meeting the Open Access Publishing requirements and standards formulated by Budapest Open Access Initiative (2002), the Bethesda Statement on Open Access Publishing (2003) and Berlin Declaration on Open Access to Knowledge in the Sciences and Humanities (2003) and can be freely accessed, shared, modified, distributed and used in educational, commercial and non-commercial purposes under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License. Copyrights of the published research works are retained by authors.