Public appetite for Covid-19 vaccine rises sharply since January – survey

The number of people who said they would refuse to take a Covid-19 vaccine has declined since the start of the year, a new survey shows.

The Ipsos MRBI poll for the Irish Pharmaceutical Healthcare Association (IPHA) said that the number of people who intend to get vaccinated or who have already received a vaccine has risen to 88 per cent of people surveyed.

This was 13 points higher than the percentage of people who said they would take the vaccine in January.

The number of people who said they would refuse a vaccine has fallen to 4 per cent from 7 per cent in January.

Covid-19: Top public health official warns on rapid reopening

---

Government reopening decisions next week will be ‘very significant’, Ministers say

---

Coronavirus: 438 new cases reported as HSE indicates people in 40s will not get AstraZeneca or Janssen vaccines

---

North’s vaccination drive hits its stride as a million receive first dose

---

A further 7 per cent said they were unsure, according to the survey of 1,002 people contacted by telephone between April 30th and May 11th.

Among those who said they would decline a vaccine, the refusal rate was highest among the 25- to 34-year-old age group, with 9 per cent opposed to the jab.

The percentage of people who were unsure was also highest in this age category, at 12 per cent, five points higher than the general population.

The Government’s latest vaccine figures shows that more than 1.9 million doses have been administered, comprising 1.4 million first and 514,808 second doses.

Collaborative efforts

The IPHA, which represents the international biopharma industry, called for global collaborative efforts to step up responsible Covid-19 dose-sharing and maximise production without compromising quality or safety.

The industry is opposed to US-backed efforts to waive patents on vaccine patents that supporters of the plan believe will allow more manufacturing of doses.

Bernard Mallee, director of communications and advocacy at the IPHA, said that analysts were predicting by the end of the year that 11 billion vaccine doses will have been produced – enough to vaccinate the world’s adult population.

“Where governments have significant domestic supplies of Covid-19 doses, they should share a meaningful proportion of them with low and lower middle-income countries,” he said.

He said that the industry was working hard to generate responses for coronavirus variants of concern, which was “an illustration of the importance of protecting intellectual property rights, the formula for scientific invention”.