Safety, Acceptance, and Hesitancy of COVID-19 Vaccines Among High-risk Sub-populations: A Narrative Review

ABSTRACT

To end the new COVID-19 pandemic, most of the world's population needs to be immune to the virus, protecting individuals from infection, and ultimately ensuring herd immunity at the population level. A variety of COVID-19 vaccines have been developed worldwide for adults and children over the age of 12 years, and the effectiveness of the vaccine in preventing symptomatic diseases and hospitalization is being studied. One of the major obstacles to COVID-19 vaccination that has emerged along with the global immunization program is vaccine hesitation or disapproval. The World Health Organization (WHO) has reported vaccine hesitation as one of the 10 global health threats of 2019. This is also related to COVID-19. The present review, explore the current evidence on COVID-19 vaccination platforms and vaccination efficacy, safety, and adverse effects among strategic sub-populations, including elderly people, people with chronic disease (diabetes, cancer), pregnant and lactating women, children, youth, and vaccination willingness or hesitancy among the target population.