Immunisation is considered one of the most cost-effective public health interventions , saving millions of lives each year, and benefiting the health of the wider community through herd immunity. Yet, there is as much reason to worry as to celebrate. During the COVID-19 pandemic, the world witnessed a strong disruption in routine immunisation, leading to an increase in outbreaks of diphtheria, measles, polio, and yellow fever in over 100 countries .
On the one hand, this can be explained by challenges with the supply of vaccines and the reduced availability of healthcare workers due to confinement policies, illness, and the diversion of activities to COVID-19. But declining confidence in vaccines also played a role . Indeed, vaccine hesitancy, the reluctance or refusal to vaccinate, is a key barrier to immunisation and a major threat to global health.
Some make the case that vaccine demand can be actively promoted through communication campaigns . While there is a large body of evidence on what and how to communicate, less is known about who should communicate. Recent studies from the US suggest that the public vaccination of high-profile politicians may boost vaccine confidence.
But systematic information on such vaccine role modelling is lacking. And it’s unclear to what extent results apply in different settings. In a recently published study we set out to close these gaps.
We used the Democratic Republic of Congo as our case study. Vaccine confidence strongly declined i.
