Reducing Vaccine Hesitancy (VH) And Vaccine Refusal (VR): Its' Correlation Factors and an Educational Intervention Programme

The COVID-19 pandemic has spread to over 200 countries worldwide and is still on the rise in 88 countries. Unfortunately, Malaysia is not the exception and registered 340,642 COVID-19 cases till 29 March 2021 since the outbreak of the pandemic. COVID-19 virus can be transmitted from an infected person to others through droplets when coughing or sneezing as well as by touching objects infected with the virus. Although precautionary measures, which include the regular and mandatory use of face masks, reducing crowds, and physical distancing, have been widely encouraged by WHO and the Malaysian government, getting COVID-19 vaccination remain the way forward to curb the wide spread of the virus and to return to the normal. However, the public awareness on the importance of getting vaccinated is still low with high level of vaccination hesitance and refusal. In Malaysia, this challenge is compounded further due to a lack of COVID-19 vaccination educational intervention programme in Bahasa Malaysia to educate the predominantly larger group in the population who are more conversant in ther national language. In order to improve the acceptance rate towards the COVID-19 vaccination in Malaysia, it is imperative to design a comprehensive intervention program that will increase the awareness and knowledge with regards to the efficacy of the COVID-19 vaccine as a solution in overcoming this pandemic. With this in mind, this study aims to identify the correlational factors of COVID-19 and develop an educational intervention programme on COVID-19 vaccination and thereafter, assess the effectiveness of this educational intervention programme.