This sort of mirrors the early history of public vaccination initiatives in the United States for smallpox [1]. Generally, poor and racial minorities were targeted back then, so you even had activists who were anti-vaccinations for anti-racist reasons (Behind the Bastards did a decent episode on it [2], based on the same book the NPR article is based on).
[1]https://www.npr.org/2011/04/05/135121451/how-the-pox-epidemi...
[2]https://www.iheart.com/podcast/105-behind-the-bastards-29236...