A lab technician holds a vile of a COVID-19 vaccine candidate during testing at the Chula Vaccine Research Center, run by Chulalongkorn University in Bangkok, Thailand, Monday, May 25, 2020. Researchers in Thailand claim to have promising results with the vaccine in mice, and have begun testing on monkeys. (source: AP/TASR)
The COVID-19 pandemic has answered the question of what would happen if the world were faced with an infectious disease pandemic and no vaccine for it.
While teams across the globe are racing to develop a vaccine for SARS-CoV-2, latest research suggests that even if one is developed, only a minority of people in Slovakia would be prepared to be get vaccinated.
And it is not just a coronavirus vaccine they are averse to, as low vaccination rates for other diseases in Slovakia show. State authorities say they are aware of the problem and are working to change public attitudes towards vaccines.
In separate surveys in April and May, the Institute for Research in Social Communication at the Slovak Academy of Sciences (SAV) together with Institute of Sociology of the Slovak Academy of Sciences (SAV), Seeseme communication agency and MNFORCE market research agency, asked 1,000 people whether they would get vaccinated against the new coronavirus if a vaccine was available.
