Crimson Cross chief urges vaccine 'fake news' fight

The top of the world’s major humanitarian network is urging governments and institutions to combat “fake news” about COVID-19 vaccines which has become “another pandemic” and begin building rely upon communities all over the world about the critical importance of vaccinating people.

Francesco Rocca, president of the International Federation of Crimson Cross and Crimson Crescent Societies, said found in a virtual briefing to the U.N. Correspondents Association on Mon that “to defeat this pandemic, we also need to defeat the parallel pandemic of distrust.”

He said there is “a growing hesitancy about vaccines generally, and in regards to a COVID vaccine specifically” all over the world, pointing to a recently available Johns Hopkins University analysis found in 67 countries that found vaccine acceptance declined substantially generally in most countries from July to October this year.

In 25 % of countries, Rocca said, the analysis discovered that the acceptance rate for a vaccine against the coronavirus was near or below 50 percent, with Japan dropping from 70 percent to 50 percent acceptance, and France dropping from 51 percent to 38 percent acceptance.

He stressed that having less trust “is in no way a good Western phenomenon,” citing the federation’s research lately found in eight African countries -- Congo, Cameroon, Gabon, Zimbabwe, Sierra Leone, Rwanda, Lesotho and Kenya -- which showed a reliable decline found in the perceptions of the chance of COVID-19 infection.

A growing number of individuals indicated the virus doesn’t affect young people or Africans, that the disease doesn’t exist now but did exist and the pandemic has ended, he said. “In a number of African countries, we have seen a prevalent skepticism towards vaccines in general, with a common belief staying that foreigners work with Africa as a medical ‘testing ground.’”

Surprisingly, Rocca said, lots of commonly vulnerable and marginalized groups aren’t even alert to the pandemic, pointing to a federation survey in Pakistan which found ten percent of respondents didn’t know about COVID-19.

“We believe that the massive, coordinated efforts which will be needed to roll away the COVID vaccine within an equitable manner must be paralleled by equally massive initiatives to proactively build and maintain trust,” Rocca said.

This will demand the same sort of sustained community engagement that recently defeated Ebola in Congo, he said.

The federation operates in 192 countries with almost 14 million volunteers and painstaking community outreach and engagement are at the heart of its COVID-19 response, Rocca said.

Up to now, Red Cross and Crimson Crescent Societies, with federation support, reach 243 million persons with COVID-19 activities including tracking network perceptions, responding to concerns and suggestions, “and providing accurate and timely info in local languages through diverse channels,” he said.

Rocca said he has watched with concern found in recent weeks “while the imminent arrival of a good possible vaccine has, at least in a few countries, washed away the commitments that were made over the summertime to ensure a great equitable distribution of vaccines between and within countries.”

He said “politicizing the vaccines is a huge blunder” and strongly backed the international initiative to distribute COVID-19 vaccines to countries worldwide referred to as COVAX as “the correct methodology both for rich countries and all of those other world.”

“If a couple of wealthy nations insist upon a `vaccine nationalism' approach, then a great many other countries - probably even almost every other countries - will not be in a position to access them, both as a result of exclusive deals between wealthy countries and pharmaceutical companies and the inevitable lag in manufacturing enough dosages,” he said.