Vaccination of Chinese health-care workers calls for more attention

Hum Vaccin Immunother. 2020 Jul 2;16(7):1498-1501. doi: 10.1080/21645515.2019.1690331. Epub 2019 Nov 26.

Abstract

Though China's health-care workers (HCWs) had totaled as many as 12.3 million by the end of 2018, vaccination rates among them are still low or just moderate. There are few vaccination programs specifically for them. Neither targeted systematic recommendations nor effective incentives are in place. The HCWs also have some knowledge or awareness gap in vaccination. Moreover, HCWs' exposure to and infection risk of vaccine-preventable diseases (VPDs) mount up, as a great number of unvaccinated Chinese patients crowd in a few large hospitals. So does the chance of a nosocomial VPDs outbreak. Therefore, receiving vaccines is an essential part of infection prevention and control for HCWs. China should pay more attention to the challenges and take substantial measures to address it in the "Healthy China" agenda.

Keywords: Health-care workers (HCWs); infection prevention and control; vaccination; vaccine; vaccine-preventable diseases (VPDs).

Publication types

  • Research Support, Non-U.S. Gov't

MeSH terms

  • China / epidemiology
  • Health Personnel
  • Hospitals
  • Humans
  • Vaccination*
  • Vaccines*

Substances

  • Vaccines

Grants and funding

This study was supported by Grants for Scientific Research of BSKY [XJ201814] from Anhui Medical University.