Residents of Dagestan are sceptical about vaccination campaign in the region

The vaccination campaign in Dagestan is of forced nature; and residents refrain from vaccination against coronavirus due to distrust of vaccines, residents of the republic and human rights defenders interviewed by the "Caucasian Knot" assert.

A resident of Makhachkala named Abdul said that he had had a coronavirus infection in October 2020. He explained that despite the presence of antibodies, he is trying to observe precautions and does not plan to be vaccinated. Abdul pointed to the lack of evidence of the safety of both Russian and foreign vaccines as his constraining factors.

In a conversation with the "Caucasian Knot" correspondent other residents of Makhachkala also expressed their uncertainty about the safety of anti-coronavirus vaccines.

The number of Dagestan residents who have passed both the first and second vaccination phases remains low. Some of them refrain from vaccination on the basis of distrust of the "Sputnik V" vaccine, Ziyautdin Uvaisov the head of the human rights organization "Patient's Monitor", has explained. "When people are forced to undergo vaccination, it leads to the fact that people begin to see something bad in it," the rights defender told the "Caucasian Knot" correspondent.

This article was originally published on the Russian page of 24/7 Internet agency ‘Caucasian Knot’ on June 8, 2021 at 09:58 am MSK. To access the full text of the article, click here.