Dr. Gagandeep Kang: Building Public Trust in Vaccines Amid Misinformation Challenges

In the face of rising misinformation, vaccine confidence remains a critical global health challenge, according to Dr. Gagandeep Kang, Director of Global Health at the Gates Foundation, during a recent World Immunisation Week webinar on “Vaccine Confidence, Misinformation and Last-Mile Delivery.”

Despite saving an estimated 150 million lives globally over the past five decades, vaccines face growing public skepticism fueled by digital misinformation. Dr. Kang, one of the world’s leading authorities on immunization science, shared insights on building and maintaining vaccine trust in an era of rapid information spread.

Drawing from her extensive experience with rotavirus vaccine development in India, Dr. Kang highlighted how scientific processes can be misinterpreted and weaponized against public health initiatives. She recounted the journey of developing Rotavac, an indigenous Indian rotavirus vaccine created when international alternatives were prohibitively expensive at around $200 per child.

“At that time, about a quarter of a million children were dying in India of rotavirus. And we could not afford the Merck and the GSK vaccines,” Dr. Kang explained, detailing how this necessity drove innovation. The development process wasn’t without controversy – despite rigorous clinical trials showing no safety signals, data was selectively misinterpreted, leading to legal challenges that were eventually dismissed.

This case study illuminates a broader pattern where scientific evidence faces distortion in public discourse. “Sometimes when you look at vaccines, there are no signals and people make them up. Sometimes there is a small signal, and it gets amplified into a very large one,” Dr. Kang noted.

Central to Dr. Kang’s message was that public trust cannot simply be expected – it must be earned through transparency and consistent delivery of healthcare services. “Trust is the output, not the input. We should not expect people to trust us,” she emphasized, challenging health authorities to focus on building credibility through actions rather than demanding faith from communities.

The rise of artificial intelligence presents both challenges and opportunities for vaccine communication, according to Dr. Kang. While AI can accelerate the spread of misinformation by generating and amplifying false content at unprecedented scale, it also offers powerful tools for early detection of health trends and large-scale data analysis.

“You can not only accelerate misinformation, but you can also make up much more misinformation than was previously possible,” she cautioned, while also acknowledging that “We have the opportunity to identify signals early, do analyses at scale, and understand populations that we might otherwise miss.”

The COVID-19 pandemic offered valuable lessons in science communication. Dr. Kang advocated for acknowledging uncertainty rather than projecting false confidence. “Honest communication is very important to say what we know and what we don’t know,” she said, adding that “Transparency about our processes earns more trust than making conclusions that will later change.”

For underserved communities, Dr. Kang highlighted that vaccine hesitancy often stems from the selective delivery of health services. When vaccines arrive in isolation without comprehensive healthcare support, suspicion naturally follows. “The problem with underserved communities has been, you come to us with vaccines, but you come to us with nothing else,” she explained.

This insight points to a need for integrated healthcare systems where immunization is part of a broader package addressing multiple health concerns. “If you treat my tuberculosis, my cold, my cough, my cancer, and you tell me this vaccine is a good thing, then that becomes very different,” Dr. Kang noted.

Trust in vaccines ultimately connects to broader trust in government institutions and healthcare systems. Dr. Kang pointed to states like Kerala and Tamil Nadu in India, where stronger public health infrastructure has built credibility over time. The consistency of service delivery, rather than isolated interventions, fosters lasting public confidence.

As global health authorities continue battling vaccine hesitancy, Dr. Kang’s insights underscore that scientific evidence alone is insufficient. Building true vaccine confidence requires transparent processes, integrated healthcare delivery, and honest communication that acknowledges both the strengths and limitations of medical science.