Experts push for public acceptance of vaccinations

While vaccines are widely used, more efforts are needed to raise public awareness of vaccines and their benefits, experts say.

Zhang Yiming, a 38-year-old film director, shared his family's tragedy on a recent talk show, hosted by the Chinese Center for Disease Control and Prevention and international consulting company Global Health Strategies.

Zhang's younger brother was born in 1984, shortly after floods hit their hometown in Xuzhou, Jiangsu province. The boy was paralyzed after suffering severe fevers.

Zhang's father believed that the local "witch doctor" could help the young boy walk again.

"Later we discovered he had contracted polio. But we had little medical knowledge at that time," Zhang said.

Polio is infectious and can cause paralysis in young children. Vaccination is an effective and safe method to prevent the disease, medical experts say. But Zhang's family did not know this in the 1980s.

"Vaccines make a safer world for both children and others," says Fabio Scano, head of disease control at World Health Organization's China office, noting that the smallpox vaccine has eradicated that contagious disease, caused by the variola virus, which had a fatality rate of 30 to 35 percent.

"It is important that each child in every corner of the world has access to this simple, effective and safe way of disease prevention," he says.

Yet there are many barriers to achieving that goal.

Statistics show among the 130 million newborns annually in the world, fewer than 29 million are fully immunized as the WHO recommends.

In China, about 49,000 child deaths could be avoided every year, with vaccinations against pneumonia and hemophilus influenza, according to Scano.

But the financial costs, parents who are too busy, and bad information are all factors that have led parents to make the wrong decision and not vaccinate their children, Scano adds.

In China, ever since free vaccinations became widely available from the late 1970s, many dangerous diseases, such as polio and hepatitis B, have been eliminated or largely reduced.

However, a large number of parents lack confidence in vaccines.

Late last year, about 17 babies died after being inoculated with domestically produced hepatitis B vaccines. After that, some areas reported a 30-percent drop in the hepatitis B vaccination rate, although medical investigators had ruled out any link between the vaccine and the infant deaths, according to the Chinese CDC.

Parents want assurance that vaccines for their children are safe and effective, according to Lance Rode-wald, team leader of the WHO China Office Expanded Program on Immunization.

The WHO is confident in the safety and effectiveness of the vaccines that are manufactured in China as well as vaccines that are imported. The WHO has evaluated Chinese regulators responsible for licensing and supervising vaccines used in China. Those agencies are fully functional and follow international standards, Rode-wald says.

An Zhijie, director of the vaccine evaluation division of the Chinese CDC, says China has a systematic approach to respond to any problems with vaccines.

If adverse effects result from incorrect dosage, procedure or substandard quality, the victims will be compensated by the government or the vaccine manufacturers, depending on who pays for the vaccines, An explains.

If the adverse event is a strong side effect or complication - and An says such cases are very rare - the government will compensate the individuals when there is no party at fault, because they sacrifice themselves for public health. However, An acknowledges that the actual amount of money individuals can get differs from region to region, depending on the financial resources of local governments.

Despite such issues, film director Zhang is very supportive of vaccination.

"My brother's tragedy could have been avoided if we had access to vaccination," Zhang says.

"I just hope such a tragedy will not happen to others."

liuzhihua@chinadaily.com.cn