The percentage of people in Cyprus who think that vaccines are safe is 62%, according to the Wellcome Global Monitor 2018.
The monitor is a global survey of attitudes towards science. Having collected responses from more than 140,000 people in over 140 countries, it offers a wealth of information about people’s interest and trust in science in almost every part of the world.
It revealed the scale of the crisis of confidence in vaccines in Europe, showing that only 59% of people in western Europe and 50% in eastern Europe think vaccines are safe, compared with 79% worldwide.
In Cyprus, 1,011 people were interviewed for the needs of the survey. The majority of them (71%) said that they think vaccines are effective. Also, the same percentage said that they learned about science at secondary school, while 64% said science benefits people like them in their country.
When looking at age groups, people over 50 in Cyprus had a higher percentage (40%) of distrust to vaccines, compared to 30-49 year olds (62%) and 15-29 year olds (52%).
Compared to other countries in Europe, Cyprus had a high percentage of people (42%) who said that they would choose religion when science disagrees with it. The UK had the same percentage, Greece was at 29% and the US was at 60%.
Another 62% in Cyprus said that science disagrees with religion.
