Vaccination drive and cyber threats in India

Abstract

Misinformation in social network sites (SNS) is increasing alarmingly and is also affected the healthcare sector especially the developing country like India. The public health programs and the life of people itself are under severe threat. The study is focused on the trends in decreasing vaccination rates in the context of the Measles-Rubella (MR) vaccination drive in India. Twitter data, news reports, and social media posts during the MR vaccination program in India are taken into consideration for the analysis. Vaccine hesitancy has become a global challenge for immunization programs. There are many factors related to vaccine Hesitancy. Based on the methods and study, we had concluded the factors affected the immunization program and suggested the measures to overcome the vaccine hesitancy. The vaccine hesitancy is also associated with political, religious, Psychological and Economic factors in India. These are used by the anti-vaccination campaigners for their vested interests. The vested interests can be propagated during any national or International campaigns and it will get much attention during this time. Social media has been used widely to promote the antivaccination campaign which is supported by misinformation and also the fake news. © 2020 ACM.