People around the world have lost confidence in the importance of routine childhood vaccines against deadly diseases such as measles and polio during the Covid-19 pandemic. new UNICEF report.

In 52 of the 55 countries surveyed, public opinion about childhood vaccines declined between 2019 and 2021, according to the UN agency.

The data was a “worrisome warning signal” of rising vaccine hesitancy amid misinformation, declining trust in governments and political polarization, UNICEF, the United Nations Children’s Fund, said.

“We cannot let confidence in routine immunization be another casualty of the pandemic,” said UNICEF Executive Director Katherine Russell. “Otherwise, the next wave of deaths could be due to more children with measles, diphtheria or other preventable diseases.”

The agency said the change in perception was of particular concern as it occurred after largest sustained pullback in immunizing children in a generation during Covid disruptions.

A total of 67 million children did not receive one or more potentially life-saving vaccines during the pandemic, and efforts to catch up have so far stalled despite rising outbreaks.

According to a UNICEF report, its flagship annual State of the World’s Children report, the picture of trust in vaccines varies globally.

In countries including Papua New Guinea and South Korea, agreement with the statement “vaccines are important for children” has fallen by 44%, and in Ghana, Senegal and Japan by more than a third. In the US, it fell by 13.6 percentage points. The report added that in India, China and Mexico, the level of confidence has generally remained the same or increased.

The report highlights that confidence in vaccines can easily change and the results may not indicate a long-term trend.

Despite a drop in confidence, more than 80% of respondents in almost half of the countries surveyed still believe childhood vaccines are important.

The data was collected as part of the Vaccine Trust project of the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine.

The states include: Alabama, Alaska, Arizona, Arkansas, Florida, Georgia, Idaho, Indiana, Iowa, Kansas, Kentucky, Louisiana, Michigan, Mississippi, Missouri, Montana, Nevada, New Hampshire, North Carolina, North Dakota, Ohio, Oklahoma. , Pennsylvania, South Carolina, South Dakota, Tennessee, Texas, Utah and Wyoming West Virginia.

As Chinese companies have become active in sub-Saharan Africa, especially in the construction of infrastructure projects, they have developed a reputation for not paying their local workers well compared to their Chinese counterparts. But the authors new research found the reputation to be undeserved, at least in Ethiopia and Angola, where the study was conducted.

Carlos Oya of the London School of Oriental and African Studies (SOAS) and Florian Schaefer of King’s College London conducted interviews with more than 1,400 workers in the two countries to find out if it was true that Chinese firms consistently underpaid local workers, and that it even mattered. mind. “The most cited – and most widely discussed – literature on working conditions in Chinese firms in Africa tends to emphasize poor and often “worst” working conditions, even when it is not clear what is being used to compare whether “average” conditions in the host country or comparable foreign firms,” write Oya and Schaefer.

They wrote that many past studies were based on too few examples (for example, the 2011 study Human Rights Watch report two Chinese mining companies operating in Zambia) or focused on working conditions rather than wages. While working conditions are important and bad practices in individual firms need to be identified, the authors of the study decided to try to specifically address the pay issue.

How well do Chinese companies pay local workers in Africa?

Oya and Schaefer interviewed manufacturing and construction workers at Chinese and other foreign companies in Angola and Ethiopia, as well as local factories in both countries. They asked not only about what employees were paid for, but also about their skills, education, role and other personal details that could affect wages.

The authors found that wages differ significantly between the two countries. They did find “slightly lower wages in Chinese companies in some segments,” they wrote: among semi-skilled construction workers in Angola and semi-skilled manufacturing workers in Ethiopia, for example. But the study concluded that much of this difference could be explained by specific differences in factors such as workers’ education or skills. “There is no clear evidence that Chinese firms consistently pay less than similar firms in the same sector and countries,” they write in a study published in the journal World Development.

The study, of course, does not point to any wrongdoing by Chinese firms in sub-Saharan Africa, and only concerns wages in two countries. But it does indicate that the narrative of Chinese firms exploiting locals may be more confusing than many realize.