Vaccine Hesitancy: The Greatest Challenge to Ending a Pandemic

A line-up of experts, including US physician Dr Anthony Fauci and Vaccine Deployment Minister Nadhim Zahawi MP, assemble to discuss vaccine hesitancy, described as one of the greatest challenges facing the COVID-19 vaccine rollout.

Immunisation is one of medicine’s greatest success stories and vaccines will be our strongest weapon against COVID-19. But rising numbers of people are refusing vaccinations for themselves and their children based on uncertainty or on misinformation.

In this panel discussion, medical professionals, policy makers and experts in infectious disease come together to discuss the history of and science behind vaccination, to celebrate its success and to explore the reasons why some people feel hesitant towards vaccines.

To open the event we’ll hear a special interview with Dr Anthony Fauci, Director of the US National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, and new Chief Medical Advisor to the Biden administration.

The panel discussion will be chaired by Clive Cookson, Science Editor at the Financial Times. and includes the following speakers:

Professor Beate Kampmann—Professor of Paediatric Infection & Immunity. Director, The Vaccine Centre London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine

Dr Doug Brown—Chief Executive, British Society for Immunology

Professor Heidi Larson—Director, the Vaccine Confidence Project; Professor of Anthropology, Risk and Decision Science, London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine

Nadhim Zahawi MP—Minister for Covid Vaccine Deployment