Less than Half of the People Want to Receive the Covid-19 Vaccine
Only 31% of respondents said they were willing to receive the Biofarma-Sinovac vaccine which is currently undergoing phase three clinical trials, and as many as 69% of respondents said they were hesitant or unwilling. Respondents' acceptance of the Red and White vaccine being made by LBM Eijkman-Biofarma was slightly better, 44% were willing and 56% of respondents said they were hesitant or unwilling to accept it.
JAKARTA 13 October 2020 Only 31% of respondents said they were willing to receive the Biofarma-Sinovac vaccine which is currently undergoing phase three clinical trials, and as many as 69% of respondents said they were hesitant or unwilling. Respondents' acceptance of the Red and White vaccine being made by LBM Eijkman-Biofarma was slightly better, 44% were willing and 56% of respondents said they were hesitant or unwilling to accept it.
These are some of the results of a survey conducted by Laporcovid19.org, researchers from the Faculty of Psychology, University of Indonesia, Master of Disaster Management at UPN Veteran Yogyakarta, and the Higher Education Forum for Disaster Risk Reduction (FPT PRB), which were presented online today, Tuesday (13/10).
Apart from looking at the public's understanding and acceptance of vaccines, the survey also looked at their understanding and acceptance of the Covid-19 medicine formulated by Airlangga University, Surabaya. As a result, only a small percentage of respondents (15%) stated that Unair's medicine could cure Covid-19. 59% of respondents stated that medicines made by Universitas Airlangga (Unair) were not necessarily effective, 36% of respondents felt doubtful about the effectiveness of medicines made by Unair, and only 5% said they were effective. Then, as many as 70% of respondents expressed doubts and were not willing to take Unair medicine if they were infected with Covid-19.
This survey is a cross-sectional study and uses convenience sampling techniques to recruit respondents with the criteria of being aged 18 years and over. Data collection was carried out online (easy, cheap and safe to do during the pandemic) using the Qualtrics survey application on 22 September – 3 October 2020. There were more than 2,500 survey takers. After carrying out data cleaning, there were 2,109 respondents (N = 2,109) whose data were processed for the purposes of this study. The data is then processed descriptively and inferentially (correlation between variables). This survey has a number of limitations, including being conducted online so it can only reach those who have access to the internet.
Survey respondents showed a good understanding of the Covid-19 pandemic, both about what Covid-19 is (for example: fever and loss of smell as symptoms of Covid-19) and its threats to health. The majority of respondents are worried and believe that the Covid-19 pandemic has a negative impact on health. Most respondents (77.9%) trusted sources of information regarding Covid-19 from health experts/public health/epidemiologists. The percentage of respondents who knew about the existence of drugs made by Unair was 54.34%, the Biofarma-Sinovac vaccine was 67.61%, and the Red and White vaccine from the Eijkman-Biofarma Institute was 47.8%.
Build Trust
The Covid-19 pandemic has hit Indonesia for almost eight months. Since the middle of the year, the government has prepared the availability of the Covid-19 vaccine, as a step to overcome the pandemic. In fact, the government has formed a Covid-19 Vaccine Development Acceleration Team. Apart from building commitments with companies from China, Sinovac and BUMN Biofarma, the government is also encouraging domestic vaccine production by the Eijkman Institute for Molecular Biology. Almost at the same time, the manufacture of Covid-19 drugs was also prepared by a team from Airlangga University (Unair) in collaboration with the State Intelligence Agency (BIN) and the Indonesian Army (AD).
Even though information about the process of making Covid-19 vaccines and medicines is ongoing, there are not many studies that elaborate on people's opinions and beliefs about Covid-19 vaccines and medicines as well as the encouragement to want to use Covid-19 medicines or vaccines which are currently still in the clinical trial stage. Meanwhile, the government has socialized the availability of vaccines at the end of 2020 or early 2021.
This survey was conducted to determine the public's understanding and acceptance of Covid-19 vaccines and medicines in Indonesia. Based on the findings of this survey, it appears that public confidence in the Sinovac-Biofarma Covid-19 vaccine and the LBM Eijkman Red and White vaccine is still quite low. The findings of this survey indicate that the public does not yet believe that the promised vaccine available at the end of 2020 or early 2021 will complete the handling of the Covid-19 pandemic. For this vaccine to be effective in building community immunity against Covid-19, the vaccine must be given to at least 70 percent of the population.
Likewise, the level of public trust in the Covid-19 medicines made by Unair is also very low. On the other hand, the public has a fairly good level of understanding regarding Covid-19, preventive measures, including trusting sources of information from scientists. This shows that there is a gap between public knowledge and trust in efforts to overcome the pandemic through drugs and vaccines.
This research recommends that the government take evaluative steps towards communication strategies in the provision of medicines and vaccines. The provision of medicines and vaccines must be informed as one of the comprehensive efforts to control this pandemic, namely by implementing strong and consistent public health surveillance including the application of testing, tracking and isolation, through social interventions and restrictions as well as implementing good health protocols (washing hands, maintaining distance and masks). The government must also make efforts to increase public confidence based on scientific robustness.
Contact:
Dicky Pelupessy ([email protected])
Irma Hidayana ([email protected])
Eko Teguh Paripurno ([email protected])
