Hi I'm Claudia Hammond and this is the documentary podcast from the BBC. Today it's

Vaccination The Global Picture because this week the BBC World Service is

focusing on vaccines which have undoubtedly saved millions of lives.

Smallpox has been eradicated, diseases such as tetanus, cholera and diphtheria have largely

disappeared in many countries. But in this program we'll be hearing why in

some parts of the world people still can't get the vaccines they need and why

there are small pockets where vaccines are available yet some are hesitant to use them.

This has implications not only for those individuals, but for the rest of the community too,

due to the way that infectious diseases spread if not enough people have been vaccinated.

There have been difficulties eradicating polio in Pakistan, Nigeria and Afghanistan,

and we've recently seen measles outbreaks in parts of several countries,

including India, Brazil, Ukraine, and the US.

People that are here, they're not uneducated, they're not ignorant, they've done so much research.

We don't just wake up and say, oh, I'm not vaccinating anymore.

It's not something you want to do. We're hated it.

The World Health Organization and UNICEF have warned that the gains that have been made in health

due to vaccination are now at risk.

In this program we want to explore what makes a minority of people hesitant

about accepting vaccines despite the scientific consensus

and what psychological research can tell us about the best ways of bringing people reassurance.

If somebody who likes us something, we're more likely to describe some sort of truth value to it.

So if your friends don't believe in climate

...