'Government has no policies to tackle vaccine hesitancy'

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The Turkish Medical Association (TTB) has criticized the government for the lack of policies to tackle Covid-19 vaccine hesitancy and anti-vaccination.

The relations between the medical industry and science create suspicion and strengthen conspiracy theories while the government has no response to this, TTB Second Chair Assoc. Prof. Ali İhsan Öktem said at an online meeting yesterday (September 15).

Vaccina hesitancy also increases during the periods when the situation worsens in terms of daily new coronavirus cases and deaths, he said.

"The relationship between medicine and industry shows how important public resources are in order to ensure the independence of scientific research, beyond the necessity of providing equal and accessible health services to everyone with public resources, which we advocate as the Turkish Medical Association.

"It shouldn't be forgotten that doctors have ethical principles and professional responsibilities to comply with in order to do good for patients and not to harm them.

"While the statements against the vaccine and other measures are based on personal views and observations that do not have any scientific value, it is clear that the suspicion caused by the relation between medicine and the industry should be eliminated."

The government's non-transparent and discriminatory policies are another reason for vaccine hesitancy and it doesn't seem to have policies or the willingness to tackle the problem, said Öktem.

Disclosing the rate of vaccinated and unvaccinated people among the Covid patients should help eliminate vaccine hesitancy, he noted.

"In a global pandemic, vaccination is a necessity for public health. The point we have reached is a point where we must defend the principle of being vaccinated not only for ourselves, but for everyone," he remarked.

Over 84 percent of Turkey's adult population have received at least one vaccine dose so far with 66.3 percent fully vaccinated, according to Ministry of Health data. (SO/VK)