Webinar on Covid Vaccine: Tackling Myths and Hesitancy

Aligarh : The Department of Psychology, Aligarh Muslim Univeristy (AMU) organised a webinar on “Covid vaccine: tackling myths and hesitancy”, to combat vaccine hesitancy.

Prof Asma Parveen, Chairperson, Department of Psychology, Aligarh Muslim University (AMU) said, that World Awakening Day is being celebrated for saving the humanity and mobilize citizens to gravitate towards Universal Access to Vaccines and Medicines (UAVM).

Prof Parveen said, no one is safe till everyone is safe – this should be the bottom line of any vaccination roll-out programme anywhere in the world. However, the stark reality is that on one side there is paucity of vaccines due to limited supply owing to unequal distribution of wealth, patent laws & intellectual property rights, which do not permit other Pharma companies to manufacture vaccines, on the other side, there is lack of awareness among the people of the third world Countries on the issue of vaccines.

Elaborating the causes of hesitancy, the guest speaker Dr Ali Jafar Abdi, Assistant Professor, Department of Community Medicine, JNMCH, AMU, said that hesitancy emerges from a nexus of beliefs, and scepticism about the benefits.

He emphasised that misinformation can only be tackled by highlighting the personal and collective benefits of vaccination.

The webinar was organised in compliance to the letter from the Association of Indian Universities, New Delhi.