Public perceptions and experiences with the on-going COVID-19 immunisation programme in India: A survey based study

Abstract

In countries with large population size, the process of spreading awareness about an entity is often a challenging task. India, ranking second in the world in terms of population, was one of the countries to produce effective vaccines and run a vaccination campaign in a span of months after the onset of COVID-19. The main objectives of the survey were to uncover the predilection of individuals regarding the available vaccines, the extent of safety and the necessity of vaccines. An attempt was made to find out the post-vaccination manifestations. The questionnaire was designed using Google forms which had a total of 31 questions and was circulated via various social media platforms. By the time of conduction of the survey, 18.40% of individuals had received both doses of vaccines and 58.10% of individuals had pain at the site of injection as the most common symptom irrespective of the type of vaccine they received. It can be concluded that the majority of individuals considered vaccination as the need of the hour. Covishield was the most favoured vaccine. Although most of the responses received were assertive, some of the respondents were still sceptical about the vaccination. It was found that vaccination helped in reducing the severity of disease and if coupled with other precautionary measures will lessen the transmission or spread of the virus.