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COVID-19 vaccination in households of paediatric cystic fibrosis patients - experience of The Cystic Fibrosis Centre in Zagreb, Croatia

Objectives: COVID-19 vaccination was available free of charge in Croatia from Jan 2021, but is unfortunately still a controversial topic. We encourage patients and their families to vaccinate. To check how this advice is accepted, we looked into the vaccination status of household members aged ≥16 y of CF children by the end of 2021, as well as their motives pro and contra vaccination. Methods: We conducted a phone survey among parents of our paediatric patients and reached 38 households with 43 CF children. Descriptive statistics was applied.Results: On average, 70.3% of household members ≥16 y were vaccinated in 2021. All eligible members were vaccinated in 60.5% (23/38) households, increasing to 84.2% (32/38) if partly vaccinated households are included. No one was vaccinated in 6/38 households ; all of them with CF patients ≤16 y. Infection occurred in 5/6 of those families. The main motive for vaccination was CF patient protection (44%), followed by concern for personal health (42%), work (7%), and travel (7%). Main reasons against vaccination were fear from side effects (39%), previous COVID-19 infection (28%), no obvious reason (11%), anti-vaxxer attitude (5, 5%), lack of information about vaccine (5.5%), medical contraindication (5.5%) and feeling „stronger then COVID” (5.5%). Of those who recovered from COVID19, 60% plan to get vaccinated. Conclusion: Vaccination and strict adherence to infection control practices (physical distancing, face masks, hand disinfection) are currently the only protective methods against COVID-19 infection. When compared to the general vaccination rate of adults in Croatia (60% in November 2021), we noticed relatively high awareness of the vaccine’s protective effect in CF patient households (70.3% members ≥16 y are vaccinated). Still, there is a quite high fraction of unvaccinated respondents and therefore space left for education and breaking down prejudices reflected in the stated anti-vaccination reasons of our patients.

COVID-19 ; cystic fibrosis

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