CAPS Covid Briefing to Address Vaccine Hesitancy Amongst PLWH
CAPS Covid Briefing to Address Vaccine Hesitancy Amongst PLWH
Vincent Manning
“I won’t have the covid vaccine, my wife and I want a baby in the future, and I heard it damages your sperm count.” Young refugee man living with HIV
I admit to having very little patience with people who complain that to wear a face-mask infringes their civil liberties. I am embarrassed by those whose main concern in a pandemic is to voice outrage that their churches remain closed. However, I understand why Black Africans & immigrants in our society may be sceptical about the governments’ intentions. After all, Black people in Africa and the USA have been the subjects of unethical experimentation in the past. Often the concerns are based on a long history of ill-treatment and targeted abuse at the hands of colonial authorities, government bodies, and pharma companies, both in Africa and its global diaspora. When marginalised groups in society are treated with hostility, as immigrants and refugees in particular are presently, or where institutional racism exists and is denied by those in power, why should we expect trust to exist?
Pre-Covid research showed that Vaccine hesitancy is probably an issue in patients living with a chronic infection like HIV. Delivering targeted information by HIV-specialists concerning vaccinations is probably a good way to increase vaccine coverage in PLWH.
For these reasons CAPS held a Covid Vaccination briefing webinar in February 2021 during which PLWH raised any questions that they had. Some groups in society have understandable reasons to be mistrusting. In this era of ‘fake-news’ raising concerns with others who are both well informed and trusted enables a process of informed decision making to take place. Of 40 people attending feedback indicates that knowledge was improved, and several formerly hesitant PLWH told us that they were sufficiently reassured and would access the covid vaccine.
Events like this demonstrate the value to wider society of organisations that are embedded within and trusted by the communities they serve.
Some of the discussion from CAPS covid Briefing can be accessed at https://caps-uk.org/covid19-vaccination-questions-answered/