Access to education and information improves the chances of parents vaccinating their children against this disease.
A study, carried out in 20 Latin American and Caribbean countries, concluded that in Colombia nine out of ten parents (90.6%) are willing to vaccinate their children against covid-19. On average, in the region 92.1% of adults responded in the same way.
The investigation, which collected the testimonies of 227,740 people between May 20 and July 14 of this year, gave them four options to estimate how much intention they had to vaccinate children against the coronavirus. The affirmative answers were “Definitely yes” and “Probably yes.” In all of Latin America, 68% of parents chose the first option and 23.4% chose the second. At the same time, 4.5% said probably not, and 3.3% definitely will not.
The countries in which the parents who did not intend to vaccinate their children exceeded 10% of those surveyed were Haiti, Guatemala, Honduras, Nicaragua, Uruguay, Bolivia, Venezuela and Panama.
“Most of the countries, practically all, with the exception of Haiti, in this analysis, have a favorable intention of vaccinating their children,” said Alfonso Rodríguez, president of the Colombian Association of Infectious Diseases (ACIN), who was quoted by the Ministry of Health in the statement.
Among other things, The study found that parents’ good access to information and education, their financial security, and the fact that they have already been vaccinated increase their willingness to immunize their children.
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In a statement, the Colombian Ministry of Health shared the results of the study and pointed out that the data it produces has a pedagogical utility. “Covid is an immuno-preventable disease. Vaccinating our boys and girls allows us to aim to reduce transmission, the generation of new variants and protect the family nucleus from intergenerational transmission ”, said Julián Fernández, director of Epidemiology and Demography of the Ministry of Health.
Since last October 31, Colombia advances the anticovid vaccination of children over three years of age. According to the most recent data from the Ministry of Health, updated until November 7, the country has registered 537,372 boys and girls between the ages of 3 and 11 who have already received at least the first dose of the Sinovac vaccine, the only one authorized so far to immunize that population.
At the same time, The Ministry of Health warned that 3,201,345 adolescents between 12 and 19 years of age received at least one anticovid dose, and 975,586 have their complete vaccination schedule.
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