People’s willingness to get vaccinated against COVID-19 is rising and more than half (54%) of those who responded to a global survey said they would take a vaccine if it was offered to them next week.
The results show an increase from November when the same survey showed that just four in 10 (41%) would be willing to get vaccinated at the time.
However, the survey from Imperial College London’s Institute of Global Health Innovation (IGHI), in collaboration with YouGov, also highlights major differences in attitudes towards vaccines across the world.
People in the UK were the most willing to accept the offer of a vaccine (78%), followed by Denmark (67%), while France had the highest proportion of respondents who stated that they would not take a vaccine (44%).
The UK also had the biggest increase in the share of people who strongly agree that they would take a vaccine, increasing from 41 per cent in November, shortly before the first vaccine was approved. In four other countries - Australia, Japan, South Korea and Singapore - willingness to take a vaccine has decreased since November.
The results are part of an ongoing effort to monitor changing patterns of health-related behaviours and attitudes during the pandemic. Since April 2020, 470,000 global citizens have participated.
The most recent survey, which ran between 4 and 24 January, shows that most people around the world trust vaccines, with two-thirds (66%) stating strong or moderate trust and only 12 per cent reporting no trust at all. It also found that the majority of people (66%) believe that having a vaccine is important for their health.
Melanie Leis, co-project lead from the Institute of Global Health Innovation, said: “Openness and transparency are vital to ensure that governments have access to the best evidence to inform policy. All of our data are freely available and we hope that our ongoing efforts to monitor the situation globally and offer country comparisons will enable better international collaboration, which is essential in the necessary strive toward vaccine equity.”
