No vaccine hesitancy in India: Survey

New Delhi: There is no vaccine hesitancy in India. Belying the narrative put forward by a section of the media, the latest IANS CVoter Covid Tracker shows that overall, 80 per cent in India are pro-vaccine, which is almost 10 per cent more positive than the American public sentiment on vaccines.

Yashwant Deshmukh, Founder-Director of CVoter, said, "In fact, India happens to be among the most pro-vaccine countries in the world. I don't even know why exactly such subjective stories are done by some agencies, which only suits the weird narrative of India still being a country of snake charmers.

"In our Covid tracker, we have done the cross tabs even on the lines of caste and religion. Yes, the upper caste and OBC are more open to vaccination when compared to the tribal populations and Muslims in India, but even they are Nett positive on vaccination drive. Overall, more than 80 per cent in India are pro-vaccine. This is almost 10 per cent more positive than the American public sentiment on vaccines."

The latest data belies the reports in international media which talk about huge vaccine hesitancy in India without any data.

The IANC CVoter Covid Tracker has tracked data since January 22, 2021 on a daily basis. Since then, the pro-vaccine numbers have been high in the 80s or high 70s in percentage terms.

The all-India sample size is 43,032, covering all states and UTs during the last six months in proportion to population. Margin of error is plus/minus 3 per cent at macro level, and plus/ minus 5 per cent at the micro level. As of June 21, the pro-vaccine number is at 84.6 per cent, while the anti-vaccine number is at 7.6 per cent.