Viruses and social mistrust in the 21st century: What can HIV prevention teach us about the mistrust to COVID-19 vaccines?

Abstract

This article problematises similarities in social responses to two different types of prevention - antiretrovirals in the form of pre-exposure prophylaxis (PrEP) against HIV transmission, and the emerging COVID-19 vaccines against the SARS-COV2 virus. For the purpose of this article, I have revisited the work of Mary Douglas, British social anthropologist (1921-2007) on risk and social responses to risk. In the late 1980s, Mary Douglas described patterns and modalities of social response to risk in emerging epidemics. The same pattern of social dynamics and response could be followed in relation to two pandemics of the 21st century - first, an HIV pandemic that started in the early 80s and in which prevention breakthrough occurred in 2012 with the introduction of pre-exposure prophylaxis - PrEP; and second, the COVID-19 pandemic that started in early 2020 with newly developed vaccines in 2021 as public health response to it.