How South Korea’s Flu Vaccine Scare Offers Lessons for Other Nations

SEOUL, South Korea — The deaths were mounting, and so were the public’s fears.

South Korea had vastly expanded its flu vaccine program to cover millions more people, to prevent a one-two punch to its health system as the coronavirus spread globally. But as the injections got underway, reports of deaths started popping up.

South Korean scientists quickly determined that the deaths were unrelated to the flu shots. But they worried that if they didn’t stop the panic, the public might shun the vaccines altogether.

So health officials doubled down — and, in the process, gave the world a game plan for when coronavirus vaccines become widely available.

They ramped up efforts to communicate with the public. They disclosed data on what was found. And they quickly got the vaccination campaign back on track, at a time when scientists dealing with Covid-19 are increasingly worried about the rise of the anti-vaccine movement.

“South Korea is doing everything right,” said Dr. Noel T. Brewer, a professor in the health behavior department at the Gillings School of Global Public Health at the University of North Carolina. “The government is gathering data, giving information to the public quickly and standing up for their vaccination program. That will ensure public trust, and help the program.”

As pharmaceutical makers rush to get a coronavirus vaccine approved, countries around the world are grappling with how to safely and quickly distribute hundreds of millions of doses. Already, the pandemic has created confusion and distrust in an era when misinformation can spread rapidly — all of which could complicate the global effort toward immunity.

If a long-proven, extensively tested flu shot can spark uncertainty and concern, it could portend challenges for mass inoculations of a brand-new coronavirus vaccine. The potential pitfalls played out on a small scale in South Korea.

The country’s ambitious flu vaccine campaign began on Sept. 8, a month earlier than usual. Health officials announced plans to inoculate 30 million people, 10 million more than last year. But in their haste, problems arose. ...

 ...Dr. Brewer, the professor at the University of North Carolina, held up South Korea as an example of how to respond to vaccine scares in the future. He noted that the main threat to vaccination programs around the world is misinformation, often related to an unproven safety scare. ...

He pointed to Japan and Denmark, where misinformation spread about vaccines against the human papillomavirus, or HPV. The vaccines help prevent cervical cancer in women, among other diseases. ...