The Impact of the COVID-19 Pandemic on Vaccine Hesitancy

Vaccination is one of the most important public health interventions in history. Every year, vaccines prevent around 4 million deaths in children, and more could be prevented if global vaccination coverage and uptake improved¹. More vaccines are becoming available for adolescents and the adult population, aiming at life-course immunisation. Despite achieving signification reductions in and even elimination of some vaccine-preventable diseases, vaccine hesitancy continues to challenge the effectiveness of vaccination programmes worldwide². Vaccine hesitancy refers to a delay in acceptance or refusal of vaccines despite the availability of vaccination services³. Vaccine hesitancy is complex and context specific and may vary across time, place and vaccines. Factors influencing vaccine hesitancy include complacency, inconvenience in accessing vaccination services, and lack of confidence in vaccines or vaccination strategies, among other reasons.

At the start of the COVID-19 pandemic, the world was eagerly looking forward to a vaccine in the hope it would protect the population from disease and bring an end to lockdown measures. The COVID-19 vaccines were developed in a short period of time using new technologies like viral vector vaccines and mRNA vaccines. Even though the quality, safety and efficacy of the COVID-19 vaccines were continuously monitored by the regulatory authorities, the fast development of the COVID-19 vaccines and the reported side effects after vaccination were identified as factors contributing to vaccine hesitancy⁴. Misinformation and disinformation were also a growing concern during the COVID-19 pandemic⁵. After the pandemic, the uptake of COVID-19 vaccine boosters was much lower than uptake of the COVID-19 vaccines’ initial two doses^6,7, and a significant impact could be shown on the uptake of other vaccines as well as on the incidence of some vaccine-preventable diseases⁸.

This Special Issue aims to understand the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on vaccine hesitancy, not only on COVID-19 vaccination, but also on the coverage and uptake of routine vaccination in general. We especially welcome submissions including the most recent data starting from 2023 onwards.

In this Special Issue, original research articles, reviews and short communications are welcome. Research areas may include (but are not limited to) the following:

• The impact of COVID-19 pandemic control measures and pandemic experiences on vaccine hesitancy for all vaccines at the end of or after the COVID-19 pandemic in the general population and/or in specific minority groups.
• The impact of COVID-19 pandemic experiences and/or pandemic control measures in the health care sector (i.e., mandatory vaccination for healthcare professionals) on vaccine hesitancy at the end of or after the COVID-19 pandemic among healthcare professionals.
• COVID-19 booster vaccination coverage and uptake among different socio-economic population groups at the end of or after the COVID-19 pandemic.
• Vaccination coverage and uptake of routine vaccines during and after the COVID-19 pandemic.
• The impact of interventions addressing vaccine hesitancy during and after the pandemic.

We are pleased to invite you to contribute to this Special Issue. We welcome submissions from all regions, but we especially encourage submissions from low- and middle-income countries.

We look forward to receiving your contributions.

Dr. Carine Dochez
Dr. Charlotte Gryseels
Guest Editors

Manuscript Submission Information

Manuscripts should be submitted online at www.mdpi.com by registering and logging in to this website. Once you are registered, click here to go to the submission form. Manuscripts can be submitted until the deadline. All submissions that pass pre-check are peer-reviewed. Accepted papers will be published continuously in the journal (as soon as accepted) and will be listed together on the special issue website. Research articles, review articles as well as short communications are invited. For planned papers, a title and short abstract (about 100 words) can be sent to the Editorial Office for announcement on this website.

Submitted manuscripts should not have been published previously, nor be under consideration for publication elsewhere (except conference proceedings papers). All manuscripts are thoroughly refereed through a single-blind peer-review process. A guide for authors and other relevant information for submission of manuscripts is available on the Instructions for Authors page. Vaccines is an international peer-reviewed open access monthly journal published by MDPI.

Please visit the Instructions for Authors page before submitting a manuscript. The Article Processing Charge (APC) for publication in this open access journal is 2700 CHF (Swiss Francs). Submitted papers should be well formatted and use good English. Authors may use MDPI's English editing service prior to publication or during author revisions.

• immunization
• vaccine hesitancy
• vaccine acceptance
• vaccine safety
• vaccination coverage
• COVID-19
• communication
• public trust