COVID-19 Vaccination Policies: Ethical Issues and Responsibility

Maricla Marrone; Luigi Buongiorno; Alessandra Stellacci; Gerardo Cazzato; Pasquale Stefanizzi; Silvio Tafuri

doi:10.3390/vaccines10101602

COVID-19 Vaccination Policies: Ethical Issues and Responsibility

Vaccines (Basel). 2022 Sep 23;10(10):1602. doi: 10.3390/vaccines10101602.

Authors

Maricla Marrone¹, Luigi Buongiorno¹, Alessandra Stellacci¹, Gerardo Cazzato², Pasquale Stefanizzi³, Silvio Tafuri³

Affiliations

¹ Section of Legal Medicine, Department of Interdisciplinary Medicine, Bari Policlinico Hospital, University of Bari, 70124 Bari, Italy.
² Department of Emergency and Organ Transplantation, Section of Pathology, University of Bari "Aldo Moro", 70124 Bari, Italy.
³ Interdisciplinary Department of Medicine, Aldo Moro University of Bari, Piazza Giulio Cesare 11, 70124 Bari, Italy.

Abstract

The World Health Organization (WHO) declared coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2, COVID-19) a global pandemic on 11 March 2020. The emergence of the reliability of vaccines, the fear of possible vaccination-related side effects, and mass-media information created situations in which families and even health professionals developed hesitations regarding the need for vaccines, with a consequent decrease in vaccination coverage. This study discusses ethical issues and responsibility for the possible side effects of SARS-CoV-2 vaccination raised by vaccination policies.

Keywords: COVID-19; SARS-CoV-2; ethics; heard effect; responsibility.

Grants and funding

This research received no external funding.