Journal of Education and Health Promotion

An altmetric analysis of online news on India’s first indigenous COVID‑19 vaccine

Document Type : Original Article

Authors

. Abhishek Royal 1
. Sameena Ahmad 2
. Athar Qureshi 3
. Vishal Chaudhary 4
. Tamanna Jindal 5
. Vaibhav Kumar 6
. Kedar Mehta 7

1 Department of Public Health, Faculty of Medicine, Public Health and Nursing, Universitas Gadjah Mada, Yogyakarta, Indonesia

2 Department of Community and Family Medicine, All India Institute of Medical Sciences, Jodhpur, Rajasthan, India

3 Department of Marketing, Chetana’s Institute of Management and Research, Mumbai, Maharashtra, India

4 Department of Physics, Bhagini Nivedita College, University of Delhi, Delhi, India, Research Cell, Bhagini Nivedita College, University of Delhi, Delhi, India

5 Department of Physics, Bhagini Nivedita College, University of Delhi, Delhi, India

6 Department of Public Health Dentistry, TPCT’S Terna Dental College, Mumbai, Maharashtra, India

7 Department of Community Medicine, GMERS Medical College, Vadodara, Gujarat, India

Abstract
BACKGROUND: Covaxin is the first indigenous vaccine developed in India against COVID‑19. The
purpose of this study was to analyze the news stories on Covaxin published in the online media
between two statements issued by Indian Council for Medical Research on 2nd and 4th July for their
content, quality of information, and reporting standards.
MATERIALS AND METHODS: A systematic search was performed on Google to identify the news
stories related to Covaxin in the English language published between these two statements. The
selected news stories were subjected to content analysis and reviewed using the screening points
developed through a consultation by two independent experts using ten prevalidated criteria for
health news review. The data were analyzed in MS Excel and StataMP14.
RESULTS: The final analysis included 24 news stories. The mean and median score of the news
stories is 10.71 and 12 (out of 20), respectively, with a score ranging from 2 to 17. The stories did
not promote disease or vaccine mongering (100%), adequately mentioned the true novelty of the
vaccine (95.8%), and source of the information (83.3%). However, they mostly failed to mention
the information on costs, research data related to benefits, and harms and quality of the available
evidence.
CONCLUSION: There is a lack of reporting of detailed analysis about the methodology of development
of the vaccine and limitations in its research design by health journalists. It is important to train
journalists on proper reporting of health news to improve its quality in Indian media.

Keywords

Covaxin
Covid‑19
health news review
news analysis
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Journal of Education and Health Promotion
Volume 11, Issue 8
September 2021
Pages 1-8

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