WASHINGTON (Pakistan Point News / Sputnik - 27th June, 2019) Ukraine tops the world in fear of vaccines against childhood diseases such as measles, with just three in 10 adults confident that inoculations are safe, Wellcome Global Monitor said in a poll.
"Americans are not the least confident nationality in the world about vaccine safety - that badge goes to people in Ukraine, who are dealing with their own measles outbreak and where just 29% agree that vaccines are safe," a press release summarizing the survey stated on Wednesday.
The French are not far behind with just 33 percent expressing confidence in vaccine safety, the release said.
Worldwide, nearly eight in 10 people (79%) who have heard of vaccines say they "strongly" or "somewhat" agree that vaccines are safe, with Americans slightly more skeptical at 72 percent, the release added.
The report comes as the US experiences the nation's worst outbreak of measles since 1992 - a development blamed on a largely disproven study that vaccines can cause autism.
US measles cases are clustered in regions where vaccination rates are too low to create a so called herd immunity that tends to limit the spread of disease, according to the Centers for Disease Control (CDC).
The CDC this week reported 1,033 measles cases thus far in 2019, with the Philippines and Ukraine the leading sources of travelers bringing the disease to the United States.
Measles is fatal once in every 500 cases in the US, according to the CDC.
