Lessons Learned from Case Studies in East Africa
Combatting Antivaccination Rumours: Lessons Learned From Case Studies In East Africa EASTERN AND SOUTHERN AFRICA REGIONAL OFFICE UNITED NATIONS CHILDRENS FUND NAIROBI, KENYA TABLE OF CONTENTS Foreword and Lessons Learned 3 Uganda 13 Kenya 32 Tanzania 39 Annex I: The Rumour Campaign against TT in the Philippines 51 Annex II: The Failed Attacks on Polio NIDs, Kinshasa And Measles NIDs, Uganda 53 Annex III: Sources and Notes 56 Annex IV: Press Coverage of the Anti-OPV Campaign, Nigeria, 2003 71 Anti-Vaccination Rumour Campaigns in 7Eastern Africa - UNICEF Foreword The Genesis of Antivaccination Rumours The Expanded Programme on Immunisation (EPI), set up in 1974, has been one of the largest and best documented public health programmes in history. The present report seeks to fill a gap on the EPI bookshelf by documenting an underreported phenomenon in developing countries, namely, the rise of antivaccination campaigns mounted against vaccination. The vaccination programmes of recent decades have, to a certain extent, been the victims of their success. As morbidity and mortality have declined, so, too, has the African public’s perception of the importance of some vaccine preventable diseases (measles is a notable exception). Fears of side effects and rumours of long term repercussions of vaccination, never entirely absent, have surfaced as vaccination programmes have matured and approached their goals of polio eradication and tetanus elimination. The near disappearance of some EPI target diseases, especially polio and, in some countries, tetanus, has raised the quite natural question “Why vaccinate?” This question has arisen just as political and religious forces opposed to government have a new tool, in the Internet, to provide support to their allegations against vaccination.
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