Swine flu shots in Australia, the first country to offer the vaccine nationally, were spurned by a majority of people mostly because they didn’t consider the pandemic virus a serious health risk, a government report found.
A survey by the Australian Institute of Health and Welfare found 18.1 percent of the population, or about 3.9 million people, were vaccinated against the new H1N1 flu strain by the end of February, five months after immunizations began. More than half of all adult Australians said they didn’t intend to get the shot, according to the institute in Canberra.
“The major barriers to vaccination uptake included the perceived problems with the vaccine (such as side effects and the vaccine was unsafe) and the perception that swine flu is not a serious health risk,” the institute said in a statement today...
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