Since vaccination against COVID-19 started in Ukraine in February, Ukrainians’ willingness to be vaccinated has increased but only slightly.
Research company Rating Group Ukraine conducted a vaccine acceptance survey on March 18-19, interviewing 15,000 adults across Ukraine.
Currently, 38% of respondents are willing to pay for vaccination, up from 32% in February, and 47% are willing to get vaccinated if it is free, up from 39%. The rest are either unwilling to vaccinate or feel “neutral” about the question.
According to Rating Group, 49% of respondents stated they would probably not get vaccinated, even if it was free. In December, this figure was 52%.
In other European countries, willingness to be vaccinated is significantly higher. The United Kingdom and Denmark lead the pack with more than 80% of the population either willing or already vaccinated.
General Trust
Responses to questions about overall confidence in vaccination were almost evenly split between trusting, 37%, and critical, 41%.
People who mistrust the vaccine doubt its effectiveness against new types of viruses, worry that the vaccination drive is a government cash grab or are afraid of possible side effects.
Fifty seven percent of respondents would be willing to take the vaccine for free if the government insured them against side effects.
Recently several European countries stopped and resumed usage of the AstraZeneca vaccine, which is the only available vaccine in Ukraine, after several reports of severe blood clots.
Only 27% of Ukrainian respondents want to be vaccinated with AstraZeneca’s product, while 67% do not want it.
About half of the respondents (51%) trust vaccines from the U.S. and European Union countries. Vaccines produced in India are trusted by 30%, vaccines from China by only 17%, and Russian vaccines by 19%. Russian vaccines have the most opponents, with 58% of respondents distrusting them.
Lack of information
For almost 40% of respondents, available information about the vaccination drive is insufficient.
Forty four percent of respondents do not know how to register for vaccination at all, while 32% said they heard about it and only 24% consider themselves well informed.
Nearly half of respondents (46%) think that there are better ways to boost immunity against the virus, while 42% have the opposite opinion.
Nevertheless, most of the respondents believe that the virus itself is more dangerous (74%) than the vaccine against it (15%).
The Rating Group Ukraine, which conducted the survey, was established in 2008 as a non-governmental, independent research organization and specializes in all types of sociological research.
