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LONDON (Reuters) – Governments around the world face a huge challenge in putting in place the logistics necessary for mass vaccination against COVID-19 and delivering a clear message to their citizens to build confidence in vaccines, said public health experts said Wednesday.
Experts at the Reuters Next conference from the United States, India and Britain said they hope the world will turn a corner against the COVID-19 pandemic in 2021 – provided authorities focus on taking vaccines and persuading populations tired by the pandemic to adhere to social distancing measures in the meantime.
“There was a lot of victory dancing and celebration that we were delivering these great vaccines, but where we didn’t succeed was that we didn’t pay attention to operational discipline and skills needed to design and implement an immunization program, ”said Michelle Williams, Dean of Harvard TH Chan School of Public Health.
She said she was optimistic that an injection of funds into public health infrastructure and “clearly articulated messages” by the new administration of US President-elect Joe Biden would help limit the spread of the virus while speeding up health programs. screening and vaccination.
Heidi Larson, director of the Vaccine Confidence Project and professor at the London School of Hygiene & Tropical Medicine, said she feels that, in some ways, 2020 is the easiest part of dealing with the pandemic.
Now, in 2021, “we don’t have just one vaccine, we have multiple vaccines, different doses, different platforms, and some of them have never been used before,” she said. declared.
“It’s a time of hyper-uncertainty. The audiences are tired. They are worn out. Not all politicians have been helpful here. And things are changing day by day, ”Larson told the conference.
She predicted a “bumpy road” to come in the months to come, after many older and more vulnerable people get vaccinated and when people are less at risk, and more likely to hesitate about vaccination plans. , could express their concerns.
Dr Naveen Rao, senior vice president of the Rockefeller Foundation Health Initiative in the United States, who spoke at the conference online from India, said that uncertainty ahead for COVID-19 vaccination plans was the issue of coronavirus mutations emerging in new variants.
“We don’t know how it’s going to go,” he said. “We must beware of variants.”
Rao noted that testing so far to find out whether the Pfizer-BioNTech COVID-19 vaccine can protect against the new variants of SARS-CoV-2 that have emerged in Britain and South Africa appeared positive. He also noted that scientists said vaccines could, if necessary, be modified to accommodate new variants.
“As the virus is mutating, we should be able to keep pace. But time will tell, ”he said.
Reporting by Kate Kelland; Editing by Alex Richardson
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