Study: Half of healthcare workers might refuse H1N1 vaccination

Healthcare workers, look around you. Are you surprised to learn that even if the swine flu hits hard, roughly half of your colleagues still wouldn't submit to the swine flu vaccine? That, at least, is the conclusion drawn by new research published in an academic journal.

The study, published in BMJ (the former British Medical Journal) surveyed 2,255 healthcare workers in Hong Kong in 2008 to find out whether they'd be willing to be vaccinated for H1N1. Apparently, despite widespread fear that the flu would turn out to be more dangerous than expected, about half said no. They argued that the vaccines, which are new, might not be safe and could have unexpected side effects.

Researchers seem to feel confident that these survey results would be similar among healthcare workers elsewhere in the world. Unfortunately, this suggests that healthcare workers may turn out to be a major vector for swine flu transmission--as well as frequent victims [1]--unless something is done to alleviate such fears.

To learn more about this issue:
- read this Associated Press piece [2]

Related Articles:
Healthcare workers catching swine flu on the job [1]
Swine flu outbreak shines spotlight on lab-tech shortage [3]