COVID vaccine hesitancy among the tribal population and its determinants: A community-based study at berhampore block of Murshidabad District, West Bengal.

Background: On January 16, 2021, India rolled out the COVID vaccination drive. A successful and effective vaccination campaign requires much more than the availability of a safe and effective vaccine. This includes identifying vulnerable populations with lower vaccine confidence and identifying the drivers of vaccine hesitancy. Objective: This study aims to find out vaccine hesitancy among the tribal population regarding COVID-19 vaccination. Methods: It was an observational descriptive cross-sectional study, conducted at Manindranagar and Hatinagar gram panchayat of Berhampore Block of Murshidabad district, West Bengal, from June 2021-November 2021, among tribal people aged >18 years. A total of 198 tribal people were selected by applying the probability proportional to size sampling method. Participants were interviewed using predesigned, pretested, and semi-structured schedules. Potential predictors of hesitancy were investigated using the multivariate logistic regression model. Results: Vaccine hesitancy was present among 36.9% of the study participants. Fear of side effects (78.1%) was the most common reason of vaccine hesitancy. Only 30.8% of them received at least one dose of vaccine. Vaccine hesitancy was associated with decreased family income in the last 1 year (adjusted odds ratio [AOR] = 8.23), knowledge regarding vaccine (AOR = 0.41), adherence to COVID-appropriate behavior (AOR = 0.45), and trust on the local health-care worker (AOR = 0.32). Conclusion: Vaccine hesitancy among the tribal population is driven by a lack of knowledge and awareness. Their economic status, attitudes toward the health system, and accessibility factors may also play a major role in vaccine hesitancy. Extensive information, education, and communication activity, more involvement of health-care workers in the awareness campaign, and establishment of vaccination centers in tribal villages may be helpful.

Reduced IFN-γ levels along with changes in hematologic and immunologic parameters are key to COVID-19 severity in Bangladeshi patients.

The manifestation of coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) severity and mortality has been associated with dysregulation of the immune response, often influenced by racial disparities and conferred by changes in hematologic and immunologic parameters. These biological and hematologic parameters as well as cytokine profiles were investigated in a cohort of 61 COVID-19-positive patients (categorized into mild, moderate, and severe groups) from Bangladesh using standard analytical methods. The data reported that the interleukin (IL)-4 and IL-6 levels were significantly increased, whereas the levels of interferon (IFN)-γ were significantly reduced in patients with severe COVID-19 (p < 0.05) compared with those in patients with mild and/or moderate COVID-19. The extent of erythrocyte sedimentation rate (ESR); neutrophil count; and levels of ferritin, C-reactive protein (CRP), and D-dimer (p < 0.05) were found to be significantly increased, whereas the white blood cell (WBC), lymphocyte, eosinophil, and platelet counts (p < 0.05) were observed to be significantly reduced in patients with severe COVID-19 compared with those in the patients in other 2 groups. Our study exhibited a significantly higher IL-6-to-lymphocyte ratio in patients with severe COVID-19 than in those with mild and moderate COVID-19. The calculated neutrophil-to-lymphocyte ratio (NLR), platelet-to-lymphocyte ratio (PLR), lymphocyte-to-monocyte ratio (LMR), and ferritin-to-ESR ratio were significantly increased in patients with severe COVID-19. The increase in the IL-4 and IL-6 levels along with CRP and D-dimer levels may envisage a hyperinflammatory environment and immune dysregulation, which contribute to prolonged viral persistence, leading to severe disease. However, the reduced level of IFN-γ can be attributed to a less fatality toll in Bangladesh compared with that in the rest of the world.

Perception and practices of COVID appropriate behavior: A cross-sectional study among adult populations in rural and urban West Bengal

Introduction: Recent COVID-19 pandemic is an unprecedented public health problem worldwide. Knowledge about the disease and adoption of COVID Appropriate Behavior (CAB) are of utmost importance in combating the pandemic. The study was conducted to assess and compare the knowledge, attitude, and practice and to determine different misconceptions and wrong practices related to the disease among urban and rural populations. Materials and Methods: A community-based analytical study with cross-sectional design was conducted from January 2021 to March 2021 among 144 adult residents from urban and rural West Bengal. Multistage sampling was adopted and a predesigned, pretested, semistructured schedule was used for interviewing study subjects. Results: Urban people were significantly more knowledgeable and more appropriate in attitude and practice than rural people (P < 0.05). The mean knowledge and attitude scores of urban population were significantly higher than the rural population across age groups, gender, occupation, and education (P < 0.05), whereas mean practice score was significantly higher across gender and occupation in the urban population compared to the rural population (P < 0.05). Many cultural and indigenous practices such as drinking warm water, using mouth wash, using home remedies were more common in urban areas and consumption of homeopathy medicines, lighting candles, making sound with utensils, blowing conch shells, and worshipping corona were observed more in rural areas. Conclusions: Wide gap exists in knowledge, attitude, and practice between urban and rural population and there were many wrong perceptions and practices surrounding COVID-19 among both urban and rural population. Appropriate policy for improving knowledge, attitude, and CAB is the need of the hour.