Dr. Christine Kelly:

I thank the Deputy for raising that really important issue. Vaccine misinformation is one of the biggest challenges we face as physicians in the area of infectious diseases. It is something we need to be really careful about and challenge it properly and not make it worse. By compromising our global vaccine roll-out programmes, we have actually inadvertently contributed to that through decreasing population confidence in vaccines in general.

A lot of data has been published. An excellent paper was published inNaturelast year that showed vaccine hesitancy rates in Africa and other low-income countries, apart from those in Africa, were similar overall to higher-income countries. The problem we have is that the current distribution model is based on giving surplus supplies to these countries. Until recently, we did not have enough production, and we still do not have enough production of the right type of vaccines. We have not had reliable supply chains. We have not had the right kinds of vaccines.

NIAC is a fantastic body. It put so much work and effort into meticulously generating guidelines for the Irish public that were evidence-based. Many countries around the world have not been able to do that. They have not been able to sit down and say what is the best, most effective, safest vaccine for their population. They are dealing with what they believe to be leftover vaccines from other countries, so that actually fuels vaccine hesitancy. Because of vaccine inequity, we have made vaccine hesitancy worse. That is one of the big issues at the minute. When we are talking about countries that are not able to absorb vaccines, that is certainly one of the factors in the mix.

We also have to remember that it is not easy for people in many of these countries to get to vaccine centres. They can be travelling for long periods. They might not be able to afford transport and such things, so there are logistic issues. We are not at a point in the pandemic that we are seeing high transmission peaks. That may come again and there may be a time when the pressure is on again to get vaccines rolled out. All those points are in the mix.