Reponse to Letter to The Editor: Regarding: Evaluation of vaccination status of health care workers for recommended vaccines and their acceptance of SARS-CoV-2 vaccines

This article responds to:

Routine OSCE to identify core communication skills required for counseling a vaccine-hesitant patient: Correspondence

Evaluation of vaccination status of health care workers for recommended vaccines and their acceptance of SARS-CoV-2 vaccines

We thank the authors, Keebayoon A and Wiwanitkit V,¹ for their interest and valuable comments.

At the time we conducted the study COVID-19 vaccines were under development and it was estimated that vaccine supply and administration capacity would initially be limited. The WHO SAGE Roadmap report was released on prioritizing vaccines.² The planning of vaccination against COVID-19 was based on the roadmap; hence, it was very important to vaccinate as many health-care workers as possible with the limited number of vaccines. We conducted the study to take every precaution to increase the rate of vaccination among health-care workers. With the procurement of vaccines, health-care workers and the elderly were vaccinated initially, and vaccinations were continued to be prioritized until increased supplies of vaccines were available. We aimed to ensure a high health-care worker vaccination rate to protect them as well as the patients. The mentioned report, conducted in February 2020 before the official announcement of the pandemic, emphasizes the importance of education for health-care workers.³

We are aware of the global vaccine equity gap. Almost 19 months after the first administration of COVID-19 vaccines, the efforts to close this gap are promising.⁴ We believe that to increase demand and vaccine availability and to promote vaccination in low-income countries, educating health-care workers and enhancing health-care information is mandatory.

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Funding

The author(s) reported that there is no funding associated with the work featured in this article.