Development of Sahabat Vaksin, a Vaccine Knowledge Portal to Support Immunization Willingness and Timeliness in Indonesia

This paper describes the development of Sahabat Vaksin, a web and mobile platform that aims to support willingness and timeliness in vaccinations in the community through delivery of relevant verifiable information. It is also aimed to help health workers and people of influence in the community increase their competence and confidence in countering anti vaccine narratives. Sahabat Vaksin was developed particularly for Indonesia to help mitigate the effects of anti vaccination narratives in the community. This sentiment has recently been aggravated by misinformation spread through social media and the internet. Most recently, vaccine rejections based on religious misconceptions on the permissibility of certain vaccines has been a key factor. This highlights the need to approach the issue through multiple lenses, going beyond the medical and scientific approaches. Sahabat Vaksin counters anti vaccine narratives through three main stakeholders. First, we equip midwives with adaptive counter messages that will help them deliver information to counter anti-vaccination arguments, touching on both health based as well as religious based counter-arguments, second we provide mothers with short, easy to understand information on vaccination, as well as customized, timely messages based on pregnancy stage or child age and perception towards vaccination, and (iii) we engage local religious leaders and actors to develop and spread their narrative in supporting timely vaccination, including equipping them with appropriate medical and technical knowledge to complement their religious knowledge.